


I Need a Doctor

by loveableabusive



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-01
Updated: 2014-05-01
Packaged: 2018-01-21 12:34:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 48,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1550660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loveableabusive/pseuds/loveableabusive
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rose struggles to see the duplicate as the man she fell for, but when she realises she still loves him, she's filled with guilt when her thoughts return to the REAL Doctor. And something else is coming. Something BAD.<br/>Can The Duplicate show Rose that he really is the Doctor?<br/>Or will he lose everything instead?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> One of my favourite works! I hope you enjoy!

I couldn't look at him.   
Not really.  
He sat in one of the expansive rooms in my family's home with a cup of tea in his hands, holding the saucer like he normally would, gripping the handle of the teacup like the real Doctor would but I knew that it wasn't him.   
Not really.   
The real Doctor had left me – purposefully this time – in this damn parallel dimension that wasn't my home with him. A fake. A double. A fake double I had kissed just because I heard the words I had been wanting to hear for so long in his voice... from a different mouth. I was so weak.   
The Doctor looked up at me as mum and dad left the room, probably to give me and him some privacy. But as they closed the door behind them, all I wanted was to scream at them, beg them not to leave me alone with the man that stole the Doctor's face. I didn't care what he said. He wasn't my Doctor. I bit my lip as I turned away, staring at my reflection in the mirror above the mantelpiece. Blonde hair ragged from the amount of times I had dragged my hands through it, eyes ringed with swollen red and mascara stained my cheeks from the tears I had cried. I barely remembered the journey home from Norway so I wasn't sure exactly when I had cried and how long for, but I guessed it was because my mind was spinning so much I thought I was standing in the T.A.R.D.I.S once more.   
I had found him and he had left me. With him. A cheap freaking double.  
“Rose.”   
My heart leapt. He still had his voice. Unwillingly, I turned to face him and found that he had already placed his cup to the side and had stood up, one hand reached toward me. There was not a thing out of place. His warm brown eyes, the incredible hair, his nose, his lips, his teeth... his shoulders, his lean body, his legs, arms... those hands. Hairy manly hands. He was every inch the Doctor that I knew and loved. But I knew it wasn't him.   
“Rose... I... I'm–” He began.  
“Don't you dare say you're sorry.” I snapped, feeling my eyes burn again. My head felt full – full to exploding – so I wondered if I even had any tears left to cry. Judging my the headache I should have cried myself dry by now, but my broken heart said otherwise. But I couldn't bear to hear those words from him... from either of them. Because I knew that was what the real Doctor would say and he would mean it. He would tell me know sorry he was that he had to leave, and that there was no choice and once again I would have a chance at a normal human life. No Time Lords, no Daleks, Cybermen, Gelth, devils, Krillitane, Slitheen... No more T.A.R.D.I.S and no more Doctor, not the real one.   
“But I am.”  
“I don't care, alright?!” I turned on him then, fresh tears burning from my eyes and tracing cold fire down my blazing cheeks. “I don't care if you're sorry because... Because you're not him! You're a fake, a phoney... You're not the real... but... it doesn't matter because he... he's gone. He's...” My tears consumed me, and I fell to my knees, the dizzying pain finally rearing its ugly head to break my will completely.  
He was there before I had even hit the ground.  
Oh god, he even smelled the same. I clung to him as he lowered me down to the rug and wrapped his strong familiar arms around me and allowed me to sob into his chest, his scent washing over me as I listened to his one singular heart beat. He didn't speak. He just held me as my sobs subsided and I just sat on that white rug near the empty fire grate with him kneeling beside me, breathing strong and steadily despite what I had just screamed at him. He knew what I was like though – he had all the real doctor's memories. All his memories, his voice, his looks and even his smell – so he probably understood why.   
“I'm sorry,” I mumbled after a moment.   
He chuckled. “So you can say it, but I can't? That's hardly fair, Rose Tyler.”   
I clung tighter and clamped my eyes shut. “I just know he would mean it. If you said sorry, he'd mean it too and it just... it's confusing me... and it hurts.”   
He gripped onto me a little tighter and pressed his lips against my hair. “I have travelled further than you could imagine in that human head of yours, seen millions and billions and trillions of people of different races, genders, sizes, shapes, colours and believe it or not people with the genetic make-up similar to that of a rock. I've seen so much, Rose Tyler.” He slowly leant away from me and raised his hands to my face, gently cupping it and lifting it up so he could see my tear-stained face. “But I've never met anyone who could make me think as irrationally as you do. You could make the most beautiful nebula look insignificant when I simply stand beside you. You could make me want to take you to fantastic places just to see your face glow.”  
I couldn't breathe. I couldn't do anything. It was so easy to forget where we were and imagine we were in the T.A.R.D.I.S and this was the real Doctor and he was saying these things. And then I remembered. This man, this double, was spawned from the Doctor. He shared everything with him. He was him. The only difference was his human side. The only difference.   
“Rose. If my being here is far too much for you, then I would give you time. We have time, Rose. You and me. It's not like before. You can spend the rest of your life with me... and I can spend the rest of my life with you.” He tucked my hair behind my ears and stroked his thumb down the side of my cheek. “I love you.”  
My face crumbled and I launched myself back into his embrace, clinging onto him tight as I wept again. “I love you too, Doctor. I love you.”


	2. I Need to Laugh

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Life with the metacrisis doctor is taking it's toll on Rose tyler and she's left with one option:  
> Go with it.

“You need to eat something,” I forgot she was there to be honest and I jumped a little before turning, slightly shamefaced, toward her. Mum was fussing again, while pushing a plate of charred eggs toward me. Tony was giggling as he raced around the kitchen, clinging onto the little trike I had bought him for his second birthday as he wobbled beside it on sturdy little legs and I had been watching him for the last twenty minutes, but not really seeing him at all.  
“I'm not hungry.” I said a little sullenly before nudging the plate away with my knuckle.   
“You've hardly eaten a thing since yesterday, Rose.” Jackie said. “I would have thought you would have been happier. Now the Doctor's back and everythin', but all you've done is mope. Did you even sleep last night? You look awful.”  
I grimaced. Quick answer to that question was a very definite no. I didn't sleep. After the Doctor and I had finally moved from that rug at about ten the night before, after what seemed like hours of being locked in our own timeless bubble, we bade each other an awkward goodnight and wandered off to our own rooms. Mum and dad had given the Doctor a guest room on the same side of the huge house as my own room... in fact, right next door, and this tiny detail (not forgetting all that happened leading up to this moment) had made it impossible for me to sleep. The Doctor, with a single human heart, was lying, possibly just as awake as me, a few short yards away. How was I supposed to sleep knowing that? I had lived without him for so long... Yet something as thin as a wall parting us seemed far too much like... torture.  
And then I remembered him. A whole dimension away. My real Doctor. My whole night was filled with guilt, confusion and worse, want. I wanted to cling onto the Doctor until I fell asleep. I wanted to kiss him, to hold him... I wanted to feel his hands on my skin... in the way I had shamefully fantasised about.   
Those hands...   
“Rose?” Blushing, I jerked out of my daydream and looked up at my mum through my lashes.   
“He's not back though. That's not the Doctor.” I muttered when I realised she was waiting for a response. I felt like a spoilt child, but I couldn't help it. It wasn't him.  
“It's him in every way that matters isn't he? He has all the Doctor's feelin's and memories, looks bloody identical... Why don't you give him a chance?”  
“It's not that easy, mum.”   
“Why not?”   
I didn't reply. I only watched as Tony did another circuit around the counter island in the middle of the kitchen with his little trike. For once, my mother had a point. Why couldn't I give him a chance?  
Right on cue, my head raised suddenly just as the door to the kitchen opened and the Doctor, accompanied by a sleepy, dressing-gown clad Pete, entered the kitchen. The whole world shrank to the Doctor's presence, even without my knowledge, until all that was left was him. He was wearing a white shirt, unbuttoned at the collar and the blue jacket he had been wearing yesterday, tucked into matching trousers. His hair was as windswept and incredible as ever and his eyes were sparkling with good humour at whatever Pete was telling him. They then glanced upwards, caught my gaze and his face somehow relaxed, as if he were relieved to see me, or the sight of me gave him peace? Surprisingly, I held his gaze until my cheeks became so red I had to look away. Was he always so heartbreakingly... beautiful?   
“Good morning, love,” Mum said as she crossed the room to her husband. She planted a big wet kiss on his cheek. “And good morning, Doctor. Sleep well?”  
The Doctor's eyes slipped from my face and he smiled at Jackie. “Like a log” He suddenly chucked. “Like a log, you know... that human saying of yours reminds me of something... There was once a pretty interesting race of non-humanoid lifeforms that lived on a small woodland planet of Oomphar, waaaay over-” He pointed somewhere up and a little to the right, “-that way, super far from here, that actually spend most of their time asleep like cats, adopting the appearance of felled trees and such until an unsuspecting traveller comes along and they suddenly turn into ravaging beasts.” He said all this in one breath and his words made me grin. His own pleased smile widened. “Pleasant people.”  
Mum instantly turned toward me. “Did you understand a word he just said?” She rolled her eyes and then smiled at the Doctor. “What would you like for breakfast?”  
“He gets a choice but I get crummy burnt eggs? All about fairness in this family isn't it?” I muttered under my breath and he winked at me.  
“Just a cup o' tea, Jackie, thanks.”   
“Just tea?”  
“Yeah, that'd do me nicely.”   
“Just tea?”  
“Free-radicals and tannins?” I asked with a shy smile.   
He winked at me. “Just the thing for healing the synapses.” Then he thought. “Not that my synapses are injured or require any healing at all... I could just like tea...”  
I smiled wider and he grinned hugely in return before Jackie turned to the kettle, looking rather smug about something. I felt I should say something to her, maybe tell her that it means nothing, but even I had to admit there was an essence of our former life in those words. To begin with, he remembered – his memory was something I half expected to be diminished as he wasn't the real Doctor – and his attitude toward me had not changed from familiar and warm... and careful. I never noticed it before but the Doctor had been careful with what he had said to me so he didn't reveal his... hang on. If this Doctor was the same as the real Doctor and they both had the same memories and feelings and personality then it figured that if this Doctor loved me then so did the real one.  
 _Ouch._  
I bent my head as the blow hit me. The real Doctor loves me. And I love him. Wasn't this worse than not knowing at all? Knowing that I loved him but I couldn't do anything about it because he couldn't love someone like me was once the worst feeling I could ever remember feeling... But I was wrong. He did love me.  
And this was worse.   
So much worse.   
I couldn't take it. I turned and left the kitchen, not bothering to look up or say a word when I felt three pairs of eyes watching me leave, my mum going as far as to call my name as I fled.   
I didn't expect her to follow me. I should've but I didn't. I just needed to get away from him with his identical eyes, identical hair, identical voice and identical... everything. He didn't follow which meant he was being true to what he had said. He was giving me time and space...  
The Doctor gave me time and space... but a whole other different kind.   
“Rose, love, are you alright?” She touched my shoulder as I came to a stop halfway through the corridor. Where was I even running to?  
“No,” I whispered, biting back tears.   
“Talk to me, Rose.”   
I looked down at the carpet. “It's not him.”   
“Does that really matter?”   
“How...” I began. “How can you... ask me that?” That's when, for the second time in two days, I broke and I flung myself into my mum's arms, for a complete lack of anything else to do.   
“Rose?” She brought her arms tentatively around me and stroked my hair as I tried to choke back a sob.  
“It's like... he gave me wings then told me it's illegal to fly, mum,” I held onto her tighter as tears flooded down my face. “I felt so free and he showed me so much! He taught me how to love completely and forever and now... I've lost him.” I bit back another sob. “I just don't know what to do! I have all these feelings and these thoughts and I feel myself getting closer to him but then the thought of him stops me. He isn't him!”   
“Oh Rose,” She hugged me. “I'll tell you something that you probably haven't thought about... This Pete, the one from here, he is not the same man I fell in love with so long ago... er... obviously... but I looked past that and found that inside, he wasn't different at all. Now look what I have, sweetheart. I have this beautiful home, I have Tony and you. I am happier than I have been in a long, long time Rose. Because of Pete. I love him. I love him like I did your dad.”   
“It's not the same.”  
“Oh, really?”  
“Dad's dead.” I choked.  
“And you're never going to see the real Doctor again Rose. He may as well be dead.” She had never been so harsh. My tears stopped immediately as the shock and the truth of the matter hit me. She touched my face and wiped away my tears with her thumb. “It's not going to be easy, but you can get over the life you had before. Because you have the thing that made everything brighter, don't you? I saw your face this morning when he came in. You adore him just as much as before.”   
I let out a chuckle. It was real laughter... even if it sounded a little desperate. “You're getting weepy too, mum.”   
“It's strange seeing you struggle so much.” She said. “The answer to all your questions is in the kitchen drinking tea with your dad. Now go on and say sorry. Go on.” She stepped behind me and gave me a little push back the way we had come.   
She had a point. Why was it only now that she decided to be intelligent about things concerning the Doctor? Was it because it had reached a point she finally understood? Relationships were easier to deal with than the concept of time and space, I guessed, so maybe she was relieved she actually could help. This was something she understood. Love.  
I wandered back to the kitchen with my mother at my heels and I smiled apologetically at the two men who were standing, slightly confused, waiting for us to return. Pete had obviously finished the tea Jackie had started and the Doctor smiled reassuringly at me before helping himself to sugar. His movements were quick and precise but even so, I could tell he was worried about me as his eyes kept flicking up toward me as if I wouldn't notice. He was trying so hard to give me space.  
But did I really want space?   
No. I guess I wanted the connection back; the connection the Doctor and I had before, when we were flying through space.  
Slowly, I approached him and reached for his hand, almost jumping as a small electric jolt shot through me when our skin touched. I was watching his face as he added one last spoon of sugar to his tea and I was relieved to see his lips quirk before he looked down at me. His expression then became despairing. “You've been crying again... Why do you humans cry so much? Every two seconds you're blarting about something!”  
“It's not a human thing.” Pete corrected with his head in the fridge. “It's a woman thing.”   
“Oi, watch it you!” Jackie had followed me back into the kitchen and was frowning at her husband as he rooted for food. “What you doing in there? I cooked you breakfast!”. There was a bark of laughter from inside the fridge and he reappeared with an eyebrow raised. He was chewing on what looked like a stick of rhubarb.  
“Cooked? You burned it. I couldn't tell what it was because it was totally black!” He rolled his eyes. “You getting rid of the staff was probably the worst thing you could've done to me!”  
“I'm not that bad.”   
“Bad?! You're awful!”  
I looked up at the Doctor and his eyes met mine. There! My heart gave a weak flutter when I realised that the connection was still there. At first his lips twitched as we listened to my parents bicker and my shy smile reappeared, growing a little as my mother called Pete something even I wouldn't repeat. The Doctor let out a little chuckle, and I giggled in return and before long, we were both bent over double, clinging to one another as the infectious laughter bubbled through the both of us and out. I couldn't remember the last time I had laughed so much, but I clung to the Doctor for dear life as we both gasped for air and clutched at our sides and tried to stem the tears that were streaming from our tired eyes.   
We laughed beyond the time when our bodies gave us pain to tell us to stop. We continued to laugh even after mum and dad had stopped their playful bickering and turned to stare at us both, which made us laugh more. The Doctor turned and pulled me into his arms, still laughing and I giggled with him, clinging onto him even as I forgot what I was laughing at. I could smell him, hear his breathing and chuckles in my ear and all of it sent my heart into a frenzy. I couldn't believe that it was just a memory that made me act like this. A memory of all the times me and my Doctor had spent together in that T.A.R.D.I.S... I could not deny the connection I saw and felt when I looked into this Doctor's eyes. There was something there. Something real.  
He chuckled once, twice more and then he pulled away a little to grin at mum and dad. “You two, you practically hate each other! That's another thing about the human race! Why spend the rest of your life with someone you love when you can marry someone the total opposite of you that you actually detest? Where's the fun in being happy, eh? A little argument never harmed anyone. Well, depending on who you have an argument with. I'm forced to remember a few arguments I've had in the past... None of them ever ended well.” He turned back to me and grinned in that crazy way I absolutely adored. “What do you think Rose? Shall we have a tiff?”   
“We could give it a whirl, I suppose,”   
“You're not supposed to say that! You're supposed to disagree! What kind of woman are you? Going off and agreeing to everything a man says! I swear, women nowadays.” His arms were still clamped around me which made it hard to take him seriously so I laughed again, still staring into his dear face. “Don't go laughing at me Rose, I'm being deadly serious. Next, some postman will be telling you to take your clothes off and you'd just go off and do it! Or was it a milkman?” He thought. “...plumber?” Again I laughed and this time he gave me a mournful look. “Come on Rose, just a little bit of antagonism please? This is an experiment remember. Important stuff.”   
I nodded, though it was hard to keep the grin off my face.   
“Well... well, you men! Yeah, you men are too busy sitting on the sofa drinkin' beer and eating sandwiches while watching cricket that they don't even realise where their food comes from! Who's standing slaving away at the stove while you waste your time at the idiot box?! Me, ya lazy git.” The Doctor grinned.  
“Oh Rose, that's it I give up! You're too much of a match for me!” He said.  
I let him go, disappointed. “Hey, you're not supposed to let me win!” I objected.  
“Ah, I could never say no to you,” He looked back over at Pete and Jackie. “Okay! Anyone object to me making breakfast? Didn't think so. Eggs! Or have you burned them all, mumsie-aaand I am never calling you that again.” He looked at me. “What have you done to me?”   
After a breakfast consisting off egg on toast (really nice actually) mum and dad went to the park with Tony while me and the Doctor lounged in one of the... err... lounges. I was watching him while he was picking up books from a pile at his feet at random, skimming through them and tossing them to the side. No one really read the books in this house anyway so he was getting the all the use out of him that he could. He had probably read them all before.  
“You're being very distracting.” He said after about ten minutes.   
“I'm not doing anything.”   
“You're staring and I'm trying to read.”   
“You read faster than anyone I know.”  
He leaned his head back so it hung upside down over the arm of the sofa and grinned. “I know, great isn't it?” He dropped the last book he was trying to read on the pile and leapt to his feet, quickly making his way over to where I lay. “You're thinking again.”   
“I tend to do that.” I laughed and he took his glasses off, placing them in his jacket pocket.   
“Talk to me.”   
I sat up from my lying position on the sofa and drew my legs up to my knees as he sat beside me, keeping his distance but in a way that was strangely intimate. I wanted to be closer but that might be because of the high I had been riding since the laughing fit only an hour ago and he seemed to understand my need for space. I thought I'd better clear the air though, if I was going to attempt to sort my feelings for the Doctor and this Doctor in order.   
But the thought of the real one, so far away, still made my stomach wobble.   
“I just...” I looked up at him once more and smiled. “You are him, aren't you?”   
“Not as in body-wise, no, but if you think about emotion, appearance and mental process and all that stuff then, essentially yes. I know it's got to be confusing, it's confusing me too! I mean I'm starting to get a little bit jealous that you love him more than you love me, even though he is me.” I blinked. That was a first. Admitting to being jealous?  
“I don't love him more.” I shook my head desperately.   
“But when you look at me, you're thinking about him.”   
“He's you.”   
He stopped. “He's the right one of me.”   
I repositioned myself and sat closer to him, placing my head against his shoulder and he rested his against mine as he put an arm around me. It was confusing it was true, but what mum had said before made a lot of sense. “I disagree.” I pulled away and looked at him, directly in the eye, and he held my gaze steadily. “I just need time to get this sorted in my head. You are him and he is you and all that is doing is confusing me more but I know.” I smiled. “You're him in every way that matters, Doctor. Just... let me get used to you being here.”  
He grinned like the sun had just come up twice in one day. “All the time in the world, Rose Tyler.”


	3. I Need... Something To Do!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The inactivity of life in the parallel universe is starting to grate on the Doctor's nerves...

The sunlight was filtering through the tiny gap where the drawn curtains didn't quite meet and it sliced through the darkness like a knife, illuminating the dust motes that were lazily drifting through the air, only to be disturbed into a chaotic whirl whenever one of the three people in the room turned to pace some more. Then he would stop for a moment, staring at the prone figure for a time, before turning on his heel and starting again.  
After ten minutes of this a second person sitting by the unconscious woman sighed and looked up at his fellow. “Will you stop that?”  
“Is there any change?” The man stopped his pacing for a moment.  
“You know there isn't, John,”  
“Then no, I'm not going to stop.” The man named John resolutely turned around and continued his pacing, shoes creaking loudly on the wooden floorboards as the seated man grumbled and leant forwards toward the woman lying on a small bed in the centre of the room. She was hooked up to countless wires and tubes, all connected to something that looked like a life support unit – but with several different monitors and computers added on for good measure. Her heart was registering as a perfectly stable and relaxed beat but that was where all normality ceased. The other monitors listed different results from the wires and tests that had been carried out on the woman and none of them were good, in fact, judging by the brain activity, the woman in the bed should have died already.  
John followed his pattern another two times before he sat down on the seat on the other side of the bed, reaching out to take the woman's hand. He pressed it lightly. “Ella.”  
“You know she can't feel you...” The seated man pointed at the monitor to the right of the heart monitor. John nodded and did not look up. With a sigh, the second man rose to his feet and walked toward the mass of screens at her bedside, taking in all the details. “I can't figure out what's wrong with her... in all my years of medical history, I have never seen the like. We need to find someone else.”  
“Like who, Lewis? Who could possibly help her?”  
“A better doctor than I?” Lewis ventured, hopelessly.  
“She is beyond the help of any doctor...” John murmured and he lowered his head to the pillow occupied by Ella, listening to the steady beep of the heart monitor, measuring each impossible heartbeat.

“Okay! Jackie! I need you to throw that bobble thing over here. No, over there! There! Yes, by your feet... a paper ball? Really? Oh well I want you to throw it at me, and throw it good, you missed me by about four feet last time!”  
Jackie took two steps back and then began what looked like a run up until she stopped and flung a little ball of paper straight at the Doctor and as it neared him he batted it away with one hand and it landed in the waste paper basket I had sitting on my lap a few yards to the right of him. He grinned with satisfaction before instructing Jackie on finding another object to throw at him. I looked up and saw my previously absent dad standing in the doorway, holding my younger brother and staring open-mouthed at the three of us. He shook himself and then approached me.  
"Experiment?” he asked, raising an eyebrow at the Doctor who grinned in response.  
“Yes! An experiment testing the imagination of a human brain when faced with extreme boredom! So far we have constructed a game of trying to get as many objects into the bin that Rose is modelling. So far we have hit nine out of fifty-three inanimate objects and only two of them ended up in the basket. What else have you got Jackie?”  
“A ball of wool.” she shouted from behind one of the sofas. She stood up and blew her hair out of her face and looked questioningly at the ball of bright pink wool she had in her right hand. “I don't knit, what the hell do I have wool for?”  
Pete sat down next to me and let Tony down, who immediately scrambled to his feet and toddled toward the Doctor. “Miranda used to knit, she was one of the cleaners before you told her to get a new job.” Before Jackie could react, Pete had turned to the Doctor who was now involved in a game of Peekaboo with the giggling toddler. “Doctor. I can't believe I'm about to ask you this but... Are you... bored?”  
“Yes!” The Doctor almost wailed. “I need something to do! I would propose an adventure but without the T.A.R.D.I.S it's a little bit on the impossible side... though I always liked impossible.” He turned around, his arms wide expansively. “I just need to travel the stars again! Find distant planets with impossible circumstances! Back in time to when the pogo-stick was first invented! I need to see, smell, hear, taste and touch new things. I've never been bored and so far, I don't really approve of the whole endeavour.”  
I watched him as Tony started demanding the attention of the Doctor again and the confused half-human looked between the window and the boy until he relented, sitting cross-legged in front of Tony and continuing his game of peekaboo. It was nearly six o'clock in the evening and the high that I had ridden through most of the day since that morning had all but disappeared, leaving a sense of wanderlust in its wake that I supposed had everything to do with the half-human Doctor sitting on our rug with my little brother like he belonged. I wasn't used to staying in one place for long with the Doctor. It was always run here, hide there and run away again before the Ood showed up to zap you. It wasn't ever... this. Domesticated. Seeing the Doctor play with a two and a half year old baby was something I could barely stand to watch.  
But there was an odd feeling of rightness having him close like this. With my family. It felt easy. Right.  
He raised his eyes to mine and I felt the desperation he was trying to convey to me and I knew that wherever he wanted to go, he wanted it to be as it was before... with us both. I had been trying to ignore the little voice in my head that was snidely reminding me that this man wasn't the same man I fell for so long ago, but I found it was getting easier the more time I spent with him. He was so Doctor I couldn't think of him as a different man, but I'd never seen him so bored.  
Adventuring through time and space left little time to be bored and it had only been a day and a half since that life had been taken away from him but it was obviously hitting him hard... however, maybe, just maybe... he could start seeing this life, this life with me as an adventure itself? I shivered at the thought, but surprisingly, it was a good shiver.  
I could deal with this pace... I could deal with slowly getting used to the idea of this Doctor and I being together. Slowly.  
An hour later, none of us had really moved. I was sitting on the floor now, my back against the sofa as I tapped away on the laptop while my dad snored, taking up the whole of the sofa, before falling asleep. Mum had lifted up one of the magazines she had bought after breakfast and was relaxing in the armchair just beside the fire and the Doctor was sitting where he had all along, at the foot of the room with his back against the French doors. He had Tony curled up sleeping in his lap and he was watching him warily, like he was too scared to move in case he woke him. We had settled into a strange sort of silence that was both comfortable and strange at the same time. The fire was crackling merrily in the grate and as winter was fast approaching it was already dark outside and the whole room was lit with a warm orange glow. No one wanted to move and I didn't want to take my eyes off the Doctor.  
Smiling, I set the laptop aside and crawled over to where he sat and settled down next to him. “How are you doing?” I asked him, conversationally but keeping my voice low.  
“My leg's gone numb,” He told me, wiggling his foot a little under Tony's weight. He had removed his blazer and was now only wearing his white shirt that my dad had probably thrown at him as it was a size or two too big for his slim body, and the way he had left a few buttons undone at his collar made it very easy for me to mark the contours of his chest and imagine the rest. My eyes drifted to his shoulders from his collarbones and then down his arms, the rolled up sleeves that rested on his forearm and then to his hands, one of which was absently cushioning Tony's head. My eyes flicked up to his face and I realised he was watching me and I felt my cheeks burn and I looked away, toward my mother who was smirking at something she was reading.  
“Do... do you want me to take him?” I asked when the silence became too much for me to bear. “He can be a bit of a lump at times.”  
“He won't wake up?”  
“He's a bloody log.” He smirked at my words but scooped the boy into his arms and offered him to me. I took him from the Doctor and held him carefully, stroking down the rebellious tuft of ginger hair as I shifted him into a comfortable position, still sitting beside the Doctor. We slipped into silence for a time as we both watched by little brother sleep before I sighed.  
“I have to go back to work at some point,” I said, biting my lip. He looked up surprised, obviously forgetting but then understanding crossed his face.  
“Torchwood. You're still... there?”  
“Try getting her to leave.” My mum said as she closed her magazine. She looked at us both. “She was always saying that they needed her and if there was a chance she could see you again, she would find it. When she did it was the last I saw of her for ages.” She smiled and stood up. “It's past Tony's bedtime. I'll take him off you and have a bath.” She lay her magazine on a side table, bent to take Tony out of my arms and left the room, giving the sofa dad was sleeping on a sound kick as she passed it. He jerked awake, looked around for a moment, before settling down and falling straight back to sleep. I smirked and then looked over to the Doctor.  
“It was the only life I could live. After what I'd seen, after what you showed me, I couldn't go back to a normal life,” I said, glumly, drawing my knees up to my chest. The fire was beginning to burn low and the darkness penetrated the whole room, taking the warmth with it. I shivered and the Doctor stood up and threw a few more chunks of firewood on the embers, along with a scrap of newspaper to help it catch. “There was so much to do and it made it easier. I stopped thinking about the pain and started thinking about what you would do. Half the time it was like you were there with me.” I looked up at him as he returned by my side and sat down. “I missed you,”  
He nodded and pulled me closer to him, resting his head against mine. “I missed you too. Every time I saw something that reminded me of you, like a rose in a public garden or a blonde girl at a shop... an image of a wolf... my hearts would skip a beat each. Ever felt two hearts skipping? You feel like you're vibrating.”  
I laughed, despite myself. “I only have the one.”  
He didn't laugh. Instead he took my hand and pressed it against his shirt, where I could feel the heat from his body all too well. “So do I,” He whispered. Under my palm I felt the strong heartbeat of his single heart and I closed my eyes, basking in the feel while being very aware that my own heart rate was increasing. His hand stroked my wrist for a second before travelling up my arm slowly toward my shoulder, which he brushed with his fingertips that same jolt of excitement shocking my body. I felt him calmly stroke up my neck, his fingers gently tracing upon my skin as he finally cupped my face with his palm.  
I opened my eyes and felt my own heart skip a beat when I saw the Doctor had shifted onto his knees and was leaning so close I could smell the washing powder my mother used on his shirt, I could feel his heart racing under my palm and I could feel his deep breathing caressing my face. Automatically I leaned closer into him and my fingers clenched around his shirt, pulling him closer, and I heard his sigh before his lips crushed against mine. My other hand threaded through his hair, my mouth opened under his and I could almost taste the desire on his tongue as it swept my mouth. I gasped and pulled him closer to my body, and he responded, gladly it seemed, holding me in an iron grip and kissing me harder, passionately, his fingers curling around the base of my skull and tilting my head a little to better reach my lips.  
I had forgotten about dad. So I almost yelped in alarm when my dad suddenly sat up and yelled something intelligible, suddenly awaking from whatever dream he was having. The Doctor released me like I was the pointy end of a snake jumping back into his previous position as he watched my dad rub his head sleepily.  
“What time is it?” He mumbled, rubbing his head.  
I checked my watch, trying not to laugh at the Doctor's expression. “It's half seven. Mum's already taken Tony to bed,”  
He sighed and stood up. “Okay, I'm going to get some food while she's busy. Are you two hungry? We've got burgers,”  
I looked at the Doctor and he grinned a little sheepishly but then he nodded. “Nothing like chewed up cow to make my stomach rumble! Give me some of that meaty goodness Pete!”  
Pete laughed and looked at me and I nodded, trying not to laugh at the Doctor's words. As Pete ambled off to the kitchen, I looked up at the Doctor. He smiled at me then moved a little closer to tuck my hair behind my ears and I smiled shyly back up at him.  
“I said I'd give you time to get used to me. But all I want to do is just... touch you. It's so hard not to! It's almost impossible, Rose.” His voice was breathless and he leaned forward to press his forehead against mine.  
“You like impossible.” I reminded him.  
“Not when you're involved, Rose Tyler. Impossible with you kills me.”  
I blushed and looked down at the rug we were sitting on and he touched my hand, tentatively. Yep, there was the shock again.  
“But I'll try harder to resist, from now on...”  
Did I want him to? I watched him for a moment as he grinned at me and I felt my heart beat quicken. He wasn't the real Doctor... it was true... but at the same time, the only thing that was different was that we couldn't go adventuring through time and space and that he would age. With me. The thought of it filled me with joy. I could live with my Doctor and we would never be without one another... he would never have to see me wither because he'd be right beside me, doing it with me. The Doctor, the real one, was always at the back of my mind, and my heart beat weakly at the thought of him, but there was something else to think on. What was best for me? And him?  
 _Brrzt_. I yelped in surprise but then lay a hand on my suddenly heaving chest as I realised what it was. I leant back and pulled my phone out of my jeans, flipping it open to answer it. The Doctor looked at me curiously but shrugged and lay down on the carpet instead, closing his eyes.  
“Hello?” I couldn't take my eyes from him and he probably knew it.  
“Rose! Hey, it's John, have you got a moment?”  
“Umm,” I looked down at the Doctor again and made a very quick decision. “Make it quick, what is it?”  
“I know you booked the fortnight off but something has come up. Do you think you could cover our department for the next few weeks? Ella... isn't feeling too great,” There was something off about his words but I did not press the issue. John loved Ella to distraction and they both ran the Alien Research department together as husband and wife. It was that department I had entered upon my employment but as soon as I realised there had been issues with the walls of reality I had requested a transfer. I had been moved within two weeks but I still spoke to Ella and John regularly. The last time I spoke to Ella, she had been excited about some tests she was making on some alien plant-life that apparently fell to earth a few months ago.  
“Is she okay?” I gripped onto the phone worriedly. There was silence for a moment and I checked my phone to see if the call was still connected.  
“She's... ill, but it's nothing too serious. Lewis told us not to worry.” Lewis was John's brother and an accomplished doctor. “Can you cover?”  
“Sure, of course, take a breather, do you need me tomorrow?”  
“Please Rose, I owe you. Massively.” And the call disconnected. I looked at it for a moment and then sat back down on the floor beside the Doctor, who sat up with a groan.  
“Work?” He asked.  
“I have to go in tomorrow, something has happened to one of the girls on ETR, so I'm going to cover her.” I explained, leaning back on my elbows and watching the flames lick the few logs that the Doctor had fed to the fire. “But it's my holiday,” I sent a mournful look up at the Doctor and he laughed, reaching out and brushing my hair from my face again.  
“Could I come with you?”  
I sat up, shocked. “What?”  
“I'm curious as to whether the Torchwood in this world differs much from the one in the other world. Besides, if they want you for your alien expertise, then they'd practically worship me. Maybe I'll be able to help?”  
“With plant-life?”  
“Why not? My brain works in a different way to yours. I have thousands and thousands of thoughts all zipping about at the same time. I'm practically a super-computer, just a little squidgier,”  
“You've always been squidgy!”  
His smile faded a little and he touched the back of his hand, as if trying to feel the difference between the skin of a human and the skin of a Time Lord. I wondered if there was any. “I'm a little more squidgy than before now though. It hits me every so often that I'm getting old. I'm dying.”  
I smiled sadly at him. “It's hard thinking of you as part human.” I told him.  
He grinned then and I relaxed a little. “Because I'm still so amazing?”  
I shoved him with my hand but laughed. “That, yes. But it's because you're so breakable now. You're like me. Before, if you got hurt before you could just... change your face but now, you won't be able to fix yourself, you could die.”  
He watched me for a moment before drawing me close. “You're scared I'll get hurt?”  
I didn't reply but I let my body language speak for me. I leaned into him, resting my head on his shoulder and closed my eyes. Yes I was worried for him. I was terrified. After all we had been through, I could not stand to lose him again. Not now.  
I had accepted that this Doctor was mine. Pretty much. The Doctor gave him to me so I could make him a better man and make a better life for myself. But I couldn't imagine how hard it would've been for him. Could I watch the Doctor walk away with a replica of me? If it meant he would be happier, yes... but it would break my heart into pieces.  
“I'm not going anywhere.” He whispered.  
I believed him.  
The next morning, I woke early. I showered quickly, dried my hair, threw on some clothes like was my usual routine before I had went off searching for the Doctor. I ran down the stairs and bounded into the kitchen, taking two steps before I stopped dead when I saw the Doctor, standing in the kitchen with a cup of tea wearing a long brown coat that was so similar to his old one that it made my heart stop. He took a sip, his eyes on me, as if daring me to say anything.  
“You're up early.” I commented, moving forward to take an apple from the bowl.  
“I told you,” He said, lowering his tea. He grinned. “I'm coming with you!”  
“What?”  
“Today, is bring your extra-terrestrial-friend-to-work-day!”  
I could only stare as he finished his tea, placed the mug in the sink and then approached me, leaning close in and whispering in my ear in a way that made my head spin.  
“I think you missed the memo.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll just say now that my version of Torchwood is a lot different then the usual universe's version of it.  
> You'll see what I mean...


	4. I Need to Work!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rose is starting to get annoyed with the Doctor constantly hounding around her, getting underfoot while she's trying to work.

“I miss my psychic paper.” The Doctor fingered the 'guest' tag that was hanging from around his neck glumly as we walked, in step, through the winding corridors toward my old department. We had been stopped at the gate and as The Doctor didn't have any piece of identification – or rather anything at all – he was turned away. After half an hour of the Doctor convincing the guard that he was a genius of the highest calibre, the guard threw a pass at him and told us to get on our way, muttering the words “I don't get paid enough for this,” as we left. And now I was late.   
“If I had my psychic paper, getting in would have been easy. I could be your superior! A lead scientist or a leading expert in the field of technology of alien lifeforms. Not just a...” He grimaced as he read the tag again, “...guest.”  
“Come on, Doctor, we were lucky to even get you in. We need to get you some I.D. I am not going to go through that every time you decide to follow me to work. Oh and you could've made up a name you know, people this side haven't really heard of you and arguing for ten minutes about what kind of Doctor you were did not help.”  
We continued on our way down the corridor, the Doctor grumbling all the while. “He gets the T.A.R.D.I.S, the psychic paper and the sonic screwdriver. How is that fair? It took me years to collect that stuff.” I ignored him and followed the corridor to the east section where the elevator stood which would take us directly into the heart of ETR (Extra-terrestrial Research). The Torchwood institute on this side of the coin was also housed in a high-rise building near the heart of London. It maintained the guise of a swanky office block and as those entering it always wore suits and ties no one really thought to suppose otherwise. It worked. Today I was wearing a smart pair of jeans and a white shirt – something the Doctor had commented about on our way to the building, me looking semi-smart – and a black blazer over the top to complete the look. I felt weird in this type of clothing but it was only while I was at work.   
I pressed the button and waited for the lift while the Doctor examined his guest pass, pulling his glasses out of his pocket and sliding them on his nose before squinting at the small piece of plastic. He had revealed the the real Doctor always took two pairs of glasses with him in case one of them got broken. He had chose to relieve him of a pair... for his own good.   
“It's just a guest-pass,” I said, grinning at him.  
“There's no such thing as just a guest-pass. This guest-pass represents my limitations around Torchwood. This guest-pass gives people the impression that I know nothing. This guest-pass -”  
“-is the only reason you were allowed into the building, Doctor. It's okay, we'll sort you out with something later.”   
The lift dinged and we stepped inside, the Doctor still examining his guest-pass as if it were something that could physically do him injury. As the doors closed, I took out a second identification card and slotted it into a small near-invisible reader in the edging of the metal interface. The countless numbered buttons on the interface lit up and a female, but obviously computerised, voice filled the small space, causing the Doctor to raise an eyebrow.   
_Rose Marion Tyler. Voice activation required._   
“Name, Rose Marion Tyler.” I sent a look to the Doctor and felt my cheeks burn. “Password... Doctor,” His surprised look was soon replaced by that grin I so loved.   
_Second life-form detected. Identification required._  
“Guest. Name, the Doctor.”   
“Howdy,” he gave the tiniest of waves to the camera in the corner and I stifled a laugh before the computer spoke again.  
 _Guest, the Doctor... Voice activation saved._  
“Does that mean what I think it does?”  
“Yep. You have to say 'howdy' every time a Torchwood lift asks you for your identification.”   
“Can I change it?”   
“Nope.”   
“Faaaantastic.”   
_Department required._   
“Extra-Terrestrial Research.”   
_Floor 34. In the event of emergency, press alarm and please wait for assistance. In the event of code Mauve, blasters are located under the grille at your feet._ I held onto the railing as the lift jerked suddenly and began to ascend. The Doctor was laughing.  
“Code Mauve?”   
“In case of aliens attacking the facility.”   
“No, I understood what it meant, just the wording. What happened to the code red you humans love so much?”   
“It was like that before I got here. Not all of us humans are thick, alright?”   
“Noted.”   
When the lift finally stopped on the thirty-fourth floor my identification card clicked out of the reader, and I took it, the voice giving us a cheery 'have a nice day' as the door opened. We stepped out onto a white washed corridor with humming white lights and a shiny metallic floor, reflective to the point of making it possible for me to see that my hair looked awful. I smoothed it flat as I lead the way to the changing rooms. The Doctor stopped as we reached the door marked with either a stickwoman or a very confused stickman.  
“I need to get out of this stuff, wait here, I'll be two seconds.”   
Ten minutes later, I re-emerged, wearing baggy jeans, trainers and a purple hoody covering a blue t-shirt with a stylized bird on the front. He grinned at me. “Your concept of time is even more warped than mine.” His grin widened. “Two seconds?”  
“Shut up.”  
I turned on my heel and led the way back down the corridor, which was lined on all sides by thick glass sliding doors, stamped with silvery lettering announcing them as labs one to fifteen, all doors and windows were covered by some sort of opaque sheeting to keep nosy sods like the Doctor nosing on their research. I stopped next to a sliding door with the letters LAB SIX stamped across the glass and I took out my identification card again, slotting it into yet another reader and watching the door slide to the right.   
It was a small white room, lit with several square light cases on the ceiling which I felt gave it a sterilized and a slightly ominous feel. Three computer units sat in a row against the north wall with bright screens flickering with data and assorted images about the experiments that were being run in this particular lab.  
 _Good Morning, Rose Tyler._  
“Good morning, bring out samples two and three,” I had gotten over how stupid it felt to talk to a disembodied voice after the first couple of weeks. It was just microphones and a computer that searches for commands and keywords.   
With a slight hiss of pneumatics, two almost invisible panels in the east wall shunted forward in a slightly jerky motion before sliding smoothly upwards to allow two large glass incubators to slide onto two perfectly square raised platforms against the wall. The Doctor frowned a little and took his glasses out of his pocket, sliding them easily onto his nose.   
“They're in the incubators because we don't want them to begin to deteriorate. They are perfect samples.” I explained like I had just swallowed a textbook. Damn Ella.   
Inside each of the incubators lay an acid green seed-shaped object about four foot long.  
The Doctor bent over the incubator on the right, tapping on the glass with his knuckles while he stared at the one that lay inside, it's identical fellow lying inside the second incubator. Each seed was around four foot long and a bright acid green with pale yellow flecks. “I've seen these before.” He said. “I visited their planet... a long, long time ago... A lush green planet near the coupled suns, covered completely by trees and ferns of different colours ranging from green to blue... and hanging from nearly every tree was one of these things. Most of them were pink, only a few of the green ones... and each and every one of them, dead. These are no different.”  
“Dead? Doctor, they're plants. One of the team members dissected one just after I moved departments.” I dug in a file near the door and took out a couple of photos from the experiment. He took them and started to flick through the images. “Ella told me. It had all the cells of a common plant.”   
“Then he mutilated a corpse, not a plant.” He frowned and straightened up. “These are an alien species, they don't all have the same genetic make-up as humans. The ones you have seen may have eyes, ears and mouths but there are those that could continue to be different in ways you can't expect. These things are an alien species. Dead, but still existing.” His frown deepened. “But how did they get here?”   
I moved to the unit to the right of the Doctor and tapped on some keys. Images and maps flicked up on screen and the Doctor moved to my side, staring at the three orange circles that marked the areas of impact. “By the look of the scans, they fell to earth a few months ago but we only found them recently. They fell into a military compound and when the men couldn't work out what they were, they sent them over here. We've been calling them Pods.”   
“Pods.” He turned and looked back to the green alien lifeforms in the incubators. “Three members of a dead species find their way to earth.” He ruffled his hair and turned away from the Pods to look at the screen again. “How? They didn't just sprout legs...”   
I laughed. “Well, Doctor, I need to get to work. Why don't you go to the ETT department and see what you can do to help there? They're always short on technicians.”   
He gaped at me. “Technicians?!”   
“Alien Tech.” I sang turning to the computer.   
“I can go play with flashy things?”   
“Just meet me in the cafeteria at one. Go play.”   
He was halfway down the corridor before the door had even swung shut. It was okay, letting him run around on his own. He was unlikely to get into any trouble, I mean, after all he wasn't stupid. My hand froze on the keyboard. Then again, he was eccentric and loved getting himself into situations he had to think himself out of.  
The rest of my day was filled with examining the pods and turning up with no new information as Ella had predicted in a sheet she had left me. I went back to it several times to see if there had been any information they had missed but everything was in place. The pod that had been dissected sat in a glass case set into the wall besides the computers and was held open by large metal prongs and wires, showing its innards. I found it hard to believe that it was an alien species but after all I had seen, the idea still made my stomach turn.   
But I couldn't concentrate. Knowing that the Doctor was running around somewhere inside Torchwood just made my heart race, and I found myself spacing out at several different points in the day, thinking about how my life would change now that he was here. At other points in the day, I would find myself thinking of the real doctor and my heart would sink.   
At one, I wandered dejectedly to the cafeteria, after finding out no new information on the Pods, I was feeling kind of useless, and I found the Doctor sitting at a table in the corner, his glasses perched on his nose, with a mountain of electrical wires and metal casing taking up most of the space on the table. Two Torchwood employees were standing beside him, watching him work with identical looks of awe on their faces. With a fond sigh, I picked up a plate of unnamed slop from the counter, paid and then wandered over to sit with him. He didn't seem to notice when I approached but offered me a bowl of jam roly-poly with custard when I sat down, claiming he didn't like it.  
I laughed at him and took it, but kept my eyes on what he was doing.  
“Is... that...” I began, staring at the half-made object sitting on the table in front of him. “Are you trying to make another sonic screwdriver?”   
“A better one.”   
“Do you have all the parts?”   
“Most of them, but these helpful chaps said they'll keep me updated on whenever they get new bits. Or rather you, unless I can get some form of Identification around here. Reckon they'd employ me? I've never had a job before. A job. Wow, I'm being domesticated.” He shrugged and pulled a long bright red wire from the pile of nameless bits and quickly soldered it to the circuit. “Just need random bits and pieces, parts from ships that have enough sonic residue for me to... Sonic this baby up.” He lifted the small device up proudly but all it looked like to me was a over large metal pen casing. It didn't look anything like the previous sonic screwdriver but I guessed that was because it wasn't finished. I smiled at him and he grinned in return.   
After lunch it was back to the Pods, and this time the Doctor accompanied me, having discovered he could not do any more work to the sonic screwdriver without more materials. He still carried it in his pocket next to the glasses though.   
He told me all he knew about the Pods. They were a species of alien that, for hundreds of thousands of years, have hung from their countless trees, emitting no signs of life. Dead. He said he'd visited their planet once and while the vegetation thrived, the alien species just hung there, immobile and depressing. He said he had no reason to go back and it was just one of the galaxy's mysteries.   
Something told me there was more to it.   
All the while, the time I spent with the Doctor just felt more and more... natural. The laughs and the teasing, the way he would charge through the lab off on one of his little tangents while I desperately tried to get the paperwork for the day finished. I couldn't concentrate around him. But I didn't want him to leave.   
That night, after dad had cooked a dinner of chicken curry and rice, we all returned to our favourite lounge, where dad flicked through channels on the fifty inch television, mum lay on the sofa flicking through one of her countless magazines, and I sat on the floor, resting against the doctor's legs as I leafed through paperwork. We had already settled into some kind of routine, but with each evening, I found that the Doctor and I would sit closer, as if we were growing more comfortable with each other as time went on. It felt natural to be with one another.   
For the moment, he was talking to dad, who was sitting beside him, in a low voice about tennis, the highlights of which were being replayed on the nightly news, and I was listening to his voice, my eyes closed and my head resting against his knees.  
“I've seen a lot of sports. Countless. I've seen sports that require you to pull off limbs and throw them through big metal hoops! I've played in sports where you need to think really fast so you don't get your head blown off – needless to say I excelled in this – and through all this, I've never encountered a game so boring as tennis. Hit a ball between two people and then what? No excitement in the game.”   
“Rose used to sit and watch the telly for hours when she was little, didn't you babe?” Jackie said from the opposite sofa. “She'd sit and watch the ball go from person to person, her little mouth open like a goldfish. Was ever so funny.”  
“Thanks mum,” I muttered as the Doctor laughed. I looked up at him and he smiled kindly back down at me, his hand reaching out to touch my shoulder. His closeness still brought the electrical tingle and I shook myself, laying down my paperwork and picking up mine, the Doctors and my dad's dirty plates. I moved over to my mum and picked hers from the arm of the sofa.   
She smiled up at me. “You're a star.”   
I smiled in return and almost ran out of the room. Once in the kitchen, I lowered the plates carefully into the sink before turning and sliding down the counters to find myself sitting on the floor, my hand pressing against my pounding heart. He was affecting me worse than I had wanted. It was all too fast... But I couldn't hide the fact that I loved this man. He was everything the real Doctor was. Everything. Just half-human. More like me than the original one. He wouldn't ever regenerate. He'd get old with me. Die with me. I was beginning to realise how important that really was to me.  
I looked up as the door to the kitchen opened and the Doctor stood in the doorway, his head cocked to one side as he gazed down at me. I guess I looked pretty stupid, sitting on the floor in blue pyjamas covered in cartoon sheep, with one hand on my heaving chest but he just smiled and crossed the distance between us. He sat down heavily beside me. For a while we didn't speak, just sitting there in comfortable silence.   
“Are you happy?” He said after about ten minutes.  
I turned my head and smiled at him. “Where did that come from?”  
He smiled and looked up at the ceiling. “I'm not used to thinking like this. Thinking of staying in one place for... god knows how long. It's different, and a little scary but not as bad as I expected... I'm thinking of it as another adventure, a brand new adventure full of intrigue and, and, and new sights and sounds. I've never had a job before, not a suit and tie, nine-til-five, monday to friday deal... never mowed a lawn, or, or, or driven a car. This is all new to me.” He turned his head to look at me. “At the same time, I'm starting to understand that it's an adventure for... for both of us. I need to know that you understand how I feel and that... you... you're... happy?”   
I smiled at him and reached out to touch his hand. I remembered the day the real Doctor had his hand cut off like it was yesterday... that Christmas day that, at the same time, seemed like a lifetime ago... the same hand that allowed the Doctor to keep from regenerating, which in turn made it possible for this Doctor to be created. I squeezed his hand fondly at the memory and he leaned his head against mine, closing his eyes.   
“I love you,” I sighed. I both felt and heard him chuckle.  
“Quite right too.” I opened my eyes and looked at him, surprised to find his own eyes searching my face. “Rose Tyler... I love you.”   
That's when I decided.   
I belonged to him.


	5. I Need You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One of the Pods are missing, taken when no one was looking, and most interestingly, the security camera shows nothing during the time the specimen would have been taken...  
> And Rose and the Doctor are getting closer...

The silence enveloped us. For the longest time we sat in that kitchen, listening to the muffled sounds of the television in the next room and the sleepy hooting of the owls outside. It was night, I remembered in some far off corner of my mind, and I had work in the morning. I had told the Doctor that he was staying at home, but he pulled that “Oh really” face that I didn't really trust, so I wasn't holding my breath. My thoughts tapered off, and I was left sitting beside the Doctor in silence, with my forehead resting lightly against his, both our eyes closed, listening to the sounds of home.  
“You smell nice,” the Doctor murmured after what felt like an age. I smiled shyly at the compliment I wasn't used to and opened my mouth to reply, maybe to tell him that to me he always smelled nice but my phone buzzed on the kitchen counter where I had left it earlier and I swore bitterly, standing up and breaking the spell that always seemed to settle whenever the Doctor and I were alone together.   
I picked up the phone and read the tiny display. Huh. Work calling... at this hour? I flipped it open.  
“Hullo?” I answered trying to put in as much annoyance as possible into my voice.   
“ _Miss Tyler! I'm so sorry for calling you so late... I just... don't know what else to do_!” The voice on the other end of the phone was struck with panic. I did not recognise it. Maybe one of the new technicians?  
“Calm down!” I soothed. “Take a deep breath and tell me what's wrong. Calmly now.”  
“ _I came into your lab to clean and... well, I didn't touch anything. I just came in and I noticed that the incubators were still out..._ ” A cleaner then.  
“I may have left them open.” I said, eyeing the Doctor. My brain had been elsewhere today. I wonder why. “It's okay, they won't be harmed.  
“ _That's not what I mean miss Tyler._ ” He gasped. “ _I.... I'm really sorry but it... it's gone_!”   
“What's gone?” The Doctor looked up at me in confusion.  
“ _One of the specimens!_ ” My body went numb. “ _It's just gone_.”   
I stayed silent for a moment, my brain speeding through the layout of the building, the lab, the security, the constant guard. Everything. Eventually I closed my eyes. “I'm coming in, wait for me in the lab.” And I snapped my phone shut.   
The Doctor was already on his feet, staring at me with an intensity that surprised me. “Rose?”  
“We're going back to work.” He grinned, the 'we're' not being lost on him and if the situation hadn't been so worrisome I probably would have returned his expression, but instead I just sighed. “It looks like we're getting our adventure after all.” 

Nothing. There was nothing. No fingerprints, no DNA, not a single thing out of place. One of the Pods was just not in its incubator anymore. It was as simple as that. The second one was unmoved and was sitting quite happily in its own little house, minding its own business like a good little specimen.  
I watched the Doctor slowly inspect the whole case as I leaned against the wall, stifling a yawn. I so badly just wanted to go to bed. Why did I come back here again at such a time? Because my friend would be heartbroken if anything happened to her experiment. That's why.  
“Nothing?” I asked when I saw his face.  
“Absolutely nothing.” He agreed. He ran his hand through his hair. “I don't get it. Why would you take one but leave the other? Why take it at all?”   
The lab was deserted. The cleaner had told only me that one of the Pods had gone missing, being too scared to bother John and his wife at home, especially as ill as Ella seemed to be to miss working with her precious Pods. We had managed to keep it fairly quiet while the Doctor and I carried out our private and, at the moment, useless investigations. We didn't want the whole of Torchwood poking around in my lab.  
“How do we know it was taken?” I sighed. Was I so desperate for adventure I would suggest that a Pod just -   
“Are you suggesting that a Pod just grew legs and walked?”  
I stared at him. “We've seen stranger things.” I reminded him.   
He stretched. “It's frustrating that I don't know more. It's the first time I've ever been stumped because I don't know something. It's a mystery to me...”   
The real Doctor would know. I shook my head and moved to the door of the lab, crossing my arms over my chest as if to keep the bitterness and guilt from bubbling out again. “I'm going to ask about the security tapes.” I told him softly. He looked up and nodded, kneeling down to examine the plinth on which the incubators were set onto.   
I had to get away. The bitterness I had felt had definitely lessened since I had first returned from Bad Wolf Bay but there was still a little voice in the back of my mind, comparing, whispering difficult truths or painful lies to make me feel like I was second best, that he didn't care. That the new Doctor was just an excuse...  
I stomped moodily down the corridor toward the lifts, but instead of entering I turned a sharp left and headed down the corridor. It's lucky I knew the place off by heart now, I thought, because every single whitewashed hall was identical, down to the stiff sterile smell of cleaning products and bleach. I tried not to gag.  
Reaching the door I was aiming for, I knocked three times and waited patiently while the man inside threw himself to his feet and ambled to the door. The metal hatch opened and I could see George's beady eyes peering into mine. I didn't need to look to know that he was clutching a blaster.  
“Rose? What are you doing here at this time?” He actually sounded shocked.  
“I'd like a favour.” I told him softly.  
He grinned, or at least I could see the upper parts of his cheeks rise slightly. “Anything for you, lovely.”   
“Can I see the security logs from Lab Six please?”   
George winced. “That might be a bit of a problem.” He said.  
“You just said you'd do anything,” I reminded him. “Come on.”   
The chubby man on the other side sighed and slammed the metal hatch shut and I distinctly heard the sound of the many locks on the thick security door being deactivated. That was one thing about the Security Rooms – They had the highest security in the building. There had to be at least one person in the room at any time and there were over a dozen such rooms in the whole building, one on almost every other floor of the entire complex. You needed a special security card to get in and out which you received after even more special training given to you by the head honchos of Torchwood itself. You were the masters of doors, the keeper of keys and the watcher of secrets. You saw everything that passed over the floors you were assigned to. You were God.  
The night guard was a plump man called George Wall. Friendly, unassuming and undervalued by pretty much whoever he met before he was hired by Torchwood a couple of weeks before I arrived with my own private raincloud above my head. He helped me realise that I wasn't totally alone.  
As George opened the door for me, I slipped inside quickly. This room had started off as whitewashed as everything else as far as I knew but time and the attitudes of those who manned this high-tech Big Brother had turned this room into the only slice of humanity in the whole building. There was evidence, everywhere you looked, of alien influence in Torchwood, but the only way you could see anything alien in this room was either by peering at the gigantic computer screen or by peering in the lockers and maybe you'll find an odd poster of a Xenomorph or Predator – normal man-made aliens. Everyone needs something to ground them, even guards.  
I didn't. I didn't want to be grounded. I wanted to fly...  
The walls had turned more grey with the passage of time, probably with the amount of cigarettes these guys usually smoked and they had made the attempt to hide it by plastering them with posters of half or (more often than not) fully naked ladies in provocative poses and postcards from families and friends. The large table in the middle of the room, while probably supposed to be used for writing out reports, was covered in snacks, half empty bottles of cola and even a deck of cards, no paperwork in sight.   
We made our way toward the massive computer screen which had been split into dozens upon dozens of tiny little squares all showing images from each room on the couple of floors this guard post looked after. All the screens were active... except one which buzzed with static.  
“Don't tell me.” I sighed.  
“Yhup. Been offline since about nine.” He tapped a few keys on the all powerful keyboard and the tiny little square enlarged rapidly, taking up, if not all, most of the screen. He tapped a few more keys and the feed began to rewind, skipping backwards through the static to maybe connect to where the camera disconnected. A sudden flash of white and there was the lab, just like I'd left it, with both the little Pods, happy inside their incubators. He pressed a few more buttons and the image stilled for a second before it began again in real time. An empty room, almost a still image before the white flash and then – nothing. Static. The hairs on my arms were standing on end.  
“What's this about Rosy?” I grimaced at the name but sighed, giving my friend a sidelong glance.  
“If I tell you, you take it to the grave.” I told him seriously.   
He crossed his chest with a finger. That's all I needed.  
“I had a phone call from one of the cleaners when I was at home. One of Ella's Pods has disappeared.” Without a word, George turned around and tapped a few more keys on the keyboard, minimising the static and bringing up three or four smaller screens and I somehow recognised them as the corridors leading to and housing Lab Six. He rewound them all to exactly the same time where Lab Six's camera malfunctioned. We both watched, eyes wide until the little timer in the corner reached the correct time and passed it. Nothing. I gaped. Then the cleaner came into view dragging his little trolley with him.  
“Wha? How could there be nothing? The Pod is gone. It's not in the lab! We looked.”   
“Want me to come?” I grimaced again. Maybe it wasn't too bad of an idea to get the security guard for the night in on the whole Pod theft. He worked for Torchwood! He didn't care about aliens.  
“Come on then.” I clapped my hand and pointed backward to the now closed security door. “To Lab Six and the mysteries beyond!”  
He stared at me. “What?”  
I sighed. “Sleep deprivation.” 

Three hours later I pushed my key into the heavy front door and pressed my whole body weight against it, unwilling to exert any strength, simply because I didn't have any left. It didn't budge.   
It was raining, as it had been for the last hour, and we were both thoroughly soaked to the bone after the walk from where the taxi had dropped us off. The Doctor had done his best to shield me from the rain but his jacket hadn't done much against a rain that fell sideways, pushed by the wind straight into our faces. We were drenched. He laughed and pulled me gently away from the door so he could open it himself and we both ambled inside. Mum had kept the heating on. She was beyond a superstar in my eyes.  
I leaned against the wall, staring at the Doctor as passed me and he took off his coat, hanging it on the banister post before ruffling his hair with both hands, tiny droplets of rainwater flying everywhere. He was so heartbreaking. The Doctor was heartbreaking. My heart had been broken, sewn up and picked apart over and over again and all by the man that was standing in front of me, dripping wet, getting more and more beautiful the longer I looked at him.  
The man in question straightened up and turned toward me. “Come on. Let's get you out of that. You'll get sick.” When I didn't react, he walked forward and started to pull my sodden jacket from my sticky arms. When I didn't react to him manhandling me, he frowned.   
“Rose?” He cupped my face in his hand. “Are you okay?”   
My eyes didn't move from his face. “Tired.”   
He looked at the clock on the wall. “Well it is past two.” He said. I nodded. “Bedtime?” I nodded again. He finished pulling off my jacket and flung it on the post along with his own jacket and took my arm, helping me up the stairs. After hardly sleeping last night and not sleeping at all the night before and with everything that happened before that I wondered why I hadn't shut down earlier. So much had happened, too much and I hadn't been able to rest. Too much had changed and with work, the Pod going missing and with the ever present question about the Doctor lingering in my mind, it was just far too much.  
He led me to my room and we both lingered outside the door. He had not stepped foot inside my bedroom, one of his 'giving me space' provisos he had given to himself, not that I had invited him, not that I had even talked to him about it but he would walk me to my bedroom, kiss me on the cheek and wish me goodnight before slipping into his own room and closing the door. I always wondered if he left quickly in case he changed his mind and slipped into weakness like the did the night before last. But tonight he lingered. I could tell he was worried about me by the way he hesitated. He did not move to leave, nor did he try to kiss me goodnight but just stood there, thinking, frowning, his hand on my arm as if steadying me.   
“You're not okay.” He told me softly.   
“Tired.” I repeated.   
“You haven't slept much, have you?”   
I shook my head, which was a mistake. The world span. He sighed and turned the handle to my door, making some sort of decision in his head. “Well I don't think that will be a problem tonight,” he told me. “You're ready to collapse.” He pulled me into my room gently and sat me on the end of the bed before he turned and seized a towel from the pile on the leather armchair in the corner, after he had placed that down beside me he began to look around for bedclothes.   
My room was large, larger than I was used to in my old life back in the real Doctor's world and I had quite a modern, black wooden framed bed with a leather finish. My quilt was twisted and pillows littered the floor from the tossing and turning I had been doing recently, their silky coverings half off and completely useless besides. My parents had redecorated once it had become clear that I was staying on this side of the coin.  
He headed toward my black chest of drawers and hesitated with his hand on the top drawer, obviously not wanting to go looking at a woman's underwear drawer, even by accident.   
“Bottom drawer.” I told him and he smiled his thanks before kneeling and pulling it open. He picked out my blue pyjamas with little teddy bears on them and brought them to me, laying them on the bed and smiling fondly.   
“These are very cute.” He told me, tracing the bear on the top with a fingertip.   
I smiled, feeling rather goofy. “My favourite.” We stared at each other for a moment. “Can you help me?”   
“Help you?” He blinked, not quite understanding what I was asking for.  
“My arms won't move.”   
“You want me to help... dress you?”   
I nodded slowly.   
He hesitated. “If you're sure.” He said slowly.   
Again I nodded and he sighed, kneeling down in front of me to unlace my trainers. I flopped back onto my bed and for a moment the world stopped spinning, the vague feeling of rest, of not having to support my weary body gave me a quick boost of energy – enough to be coherent and rational anyway.  
What was I doing?! I thought to myself savagely. I couldn't let the Doctor undress me like I was some child. I was old enough to take care of myself and I ought to tell him so! One shoe came off and I felt his hands brush the cuff of my jeans as he started on my other foot.   
I closed my eyes, cursing my weakness. “I'm sorry.” I told him.  
“What for?” The other shoe came off and he knelt back, sitting on his feet.   
I opened my eyes and a tear, probably borne from tiredness rather than emotion, leaked from between my lashes and down my cheek. “That I asked you to do this, you didn't have to.”   
The Doctor suddenly came into view again, standing up and leaning forward to help me lift into a sitting position.  
“You've been through a lot.” He told me. He took the towel from beside me and carefully placed it over my head, gently drying my hair. I closed my eyes and let him work, gently massaging my scalp so it tingled, making sure no more strands of blonde hair were dripping. He shifted the material and I opened my eyes to see his face. “You look exhausted.”   
He put the towel to the side and with one final look into my eyes to make sure I was sure, he carefully grabbed the hem of my sodden t-shirt, soaked even through my useless jacket, pulling up and over my head. He took the towel again and started to work on drying my arms, my torso, his hands very careful not to touch my skin and he used the towel as some sort of shield, saving us both from the shock that would ensue. He was careful not to look anywhere he shouldn't.  
I shivered and he increased his speed a little, finally laying down the towel again and he, frowning deeply, undid the button on my jeans. Gently he peeled them off, lifting me up slightly so the fabric could pass where I had been sitting and once again, he seized my towel.   
I should have felt more self-conscious, thinking back. I was sitting, in my underwear, in front of the Doctor and he was gently drying my body with a fluffy pink towel, making sure I wasn't going to get sick. I'd asked him to help me out of sheer desperation, and now I couldn't stop him out of another sort of desperation. I needed the contact with him.  
He pulled the blue bear top from the pile of pyjamas and gently lifted it over my head and down and I was able to feed my arms through the straps and, for the most part, ignore it when his thumb grazed the small of my back. He then picked up the bottoms and, with infinite care he took my right leg in his hand.   
Our breathing stopped as the shock ran through us both and, slowly, our eyes met. His pressure slowly increased on my leg as he let out a shuddering breath, his hand slowly flattening to stroke upwards with infinite care to the back of my knee – normally a ticklish spot – but I couldn't move, the tiny little shocks of whatever it was sending my heart into a frenzy.  
We were alone. Totally alone.  
And he stilled. Abruptly he let go of my leg and picked up the bottoms again almost roughly and started to help me into them.   
I was confused. Worse than confused, I was mortified. I watched his face as he lifted the elasticated waist over my hips, lifting me up slightly again and he took my arm, gently lifting me up and guiding me, slowly to the side of my bed so I could clamber on and he fixed my duvet so it was its proper shape again. He did not look at me once. He turned to leave so I did all I could do in my state.  
I grabbed his wrist, stopping him.  
“Stay.” I whispered.  
He turned to me, his shock plain on his features.  
“Rose?”   
I lifted my other hand and threaded it though his fingers. “Please stay.” I repeated. He stared at me for a moment more before slowly, he flexed his fingers and I allowed him to release himself. But instead of walking to the door like I expected, he quietly made his way to the far wall where the lightswitch sat and he gently flicked it off before coming around the bottom of my bed to the other side. There, in the light of the moon outside, I saw as he shed his blazer and his shirt but kept his trousers on, softly slipping in beside me.  
His arms were around me. I could feel his breathing in my ear, his heart against my back. I rolled over to face him.  
“Why did you stop?” I murmured. All my guards were down now. I was too tired, too mentally exhausted to bother and too stunned by my boldness. Asking him to undress me, asking him to stay with me...  
He gently tucked a strand of my damp hair out of my face. “This is me, giving you space.” He said. “I'm not going to rush you.”  
“We're in bed together.” I reminded him.   
He laughed. “True but I won't do anything you won't want me to – and now I can still tell you're unsure.” I went to talk but he gently kissed my lips to silence me. “It's okay, Rose. I understand. I will wait. I said I can spend my life with you if you wanted me to and that means that I'm yours... and if need be, I'll wait forever.”   
I smiled and closed my eyes, snuggling deeper into the Doctor's waiting arms. For the first time in what felt like an age, I fell asleep... playing the Doctor's last words in my mind as my body warmed with his.  
“Remember, I need you.”


	6. I Need to Stay Calm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tension is rising when Rose discovers just how sick Ella is and an argument with the Doctor is not helping how she feels.

I awoke in his arms. At first I was confused, dazed, by the light that was sifting through the tiny gap in the curtains but then the occurrences of last night marched up to meet me and I turned around to face my Doctor.  
He was still asleep, his eyes closed so his eyelashes dusted his skin, his hair ruffled beyond his usual bedhead look and his breathing deep and relaxed, his features calm and unworried. Our legs were tangled together in a mangled mess and our arms were clutching at each other like we were terrified that if we let go, our counterparts would be forever lost to us. It was the closest I'd ever been to him.  
“Are you staring at me, Rose Tyler?” His voice made me jump and I inwardly swore. Of course he would wake before I did. His eyes opened and I felt myself slip further into the closeness, the warmth I saw there beyond anything I had ever experienced before from anybody. I pouted and he smirked at my expression, touching that rebellious lock of hair, pushing it back slightly.   
“You looked... calm.” I told him. My voice was thick with sleep and I could swear I had terrible morning breath. I felt naked, too exposed. I had all my imperfections, my bedhead, bad morning breath, in a very messy, very visible ball and I was showing them in all their glory to the Doctor. The Doctor of all people.  
“You don't.” I raised my eyes to meet with his and he smiled. “When you worry, you get a little crease just-” he lifted up his hand and lightly brushed the space just between my eyebrows with a finger “-here. And while we are pretty safe here, without worry... Am I making you uncomfortable?”   
“No!” My voice came out in a shout. I checked myself. “No. You're not.”  
“Then why the worry, Rose?”   
I set my face. “Does my breath smell?”  
“Yes.”  
“Is my hair a complete mess?”  
“Yes.”  
I sighed, defeated.  
“You also have some of yesterday's make-up in the corner of your eye.” I gaped at him and he laughed, wrapping his arms around me and pulling me closer to his body. I almost pushed away from him, shocked by his bluntness. Almost. His laughter was rumbling deep in his chest and I pressed my forehead against his skin, feeling him laughing, the beating of his heart. “Rose. Rose. Rose. I don't care about all that.”  
I couldn't resist looking up at him. “Wha?”  
“You've just woken up.” He told me, softly. “You're allowed to be a little dishevelled... It doesn't change how beautiful you actually are.”  
I closed my eyes and snuggled closer to him, wanting to ignore the fact that we probably had to get up soon and face the lab and the missing Pod again. I wanted to stay in this little dream forever.  
“We should probably get up.” He said as if reading my mind.   
“No.” I shook my head and he laughed. Slowly I raised my head out of the cover of the duvet, looking up at him. This was uncharted territory, I realised suddenly. Every little thing we had been through over the last couple of days was something that the real Doctor and I had experienced – the friendship with an underlying unspoken wealth of feeling on both parts – but this, this was something new. He was the Doctor in a situation I had never thought I would ever see with my human eyes, looking so normal, so at ease and so... human that it made me dizzy. My Doctor was in my bed, half naked like it was the most normal thing in the world. Like we were a couple. A real couple taking their first tentative steps toward their relationship together.  
He leaned forward and pressed his forehead to mine, reaching up and stroking the side of my face.   
I didn't think.  
I closed my eyes at the contact and automatically lifted my face to meet his. There was a moment of silence, of shock, when our lips met, which was hesitantly followed by the increase of pressure, his arms snaking around my body and pulling me closer.  
I drew back a little, my eyes opening slightly to peer at him as my hand reached forward to touch the side of his face. He closed his eyes and leaned toward me.  
What was I doing? Why was my heart racing? Hundreds of questions were buzzing around in my head, all screaming out their rude, obnoxious bids for attention while my heart tried and failed to answer them, as confused and conflicted as it was.  
But then a thought – it was not a panicked question, an argument or a complaint. It was not something I had to worry myself over. It was something... else.  
Why not?   
Hell, why not?!  
I met him in the middle, the sudden fire that had lit up twice because of this man returned but it felt ten times stronger than I had previously experienced. My lips slowly parted under his and he made an appreciative noise in the back of his throat, even as our arms snaked around each other, my hands threading through his hair, taking the passage they had yearned to do for so, so long while his pulled me ever closer to his lean body.   
His grip was far too tight, but I wanted it tighter, his lips were pressing too hard on mine but I wanted them harder; nothing was enough – I wanted more and I knew I would always want more until I had everything he had to give... for always. There was no escaping the fact that I wanted this and if the way his hands were pulling franticly at the hem of my pyjama top was anything to go by, he did too.  
I pulled away from the kiss long enough for the fabric to pass my head but not even a second later our lips were crushed together once more, my hands back in his hair, pulling perhaps a little too hard but he did not complain and neither did I.   
His left palm was flat on the small of my back while the other gently tilted my head to better reach my lips.  
It was not enough for me.  
His hands, while perfect, were not enough where they were. His lips, while perfect, were just teasing me.   
I wanted more. I needed more.   
The hand placed at the small of my back began to inch upwards and my breath caught in my throat as his fingertips met the clasp on my bra. He was hesitant. His fingers were slow, unsure. I bit his bottom lip, hard.  
Snap. The clasp was undone and his arms were once again holding me in that vice-like grip, his kiss harder and travelling. Down my throat, tiny bites and kisses trailing fire upon my skin. I gasped as his lips pressed against the mound of my breast, just above the cup of my bra which he had failed to fully remove and I heard his chuckle; the sound of his voice, the background undertones of arousal and I couldn't take it. I knew this would be it. There would be no going back.   
My arm snaked down to his trousers and my shaking fingers fumbled with the button, desperate to get it undone as the Doctor leaned back and slowly pulled the rest of my bra away from my chest.  
 _Knock, knock, knock._  
We froze.  
“Rose? Sweetheart? Are you getting up for work?” Mum. Sudden upsurge of panic. Mum never waited for me to answer to come in. She was coming in. She was coming IN.  
The Doctor must have seen the urgency in my eyes because he rolled away from me at the same moment as my mum came walking in, carrying a large pile of freshly ironed clean clothes. “Come on, you're going to be la–” She stopped.  
“Morning mum!” I said brightly, making sure the duvet had covered everything up to my chin so she couldn't see the lack of a pyjama top... She would suspect my nakedness but she wouldn't know for sure. I toyed with the idea of pushing my leg out of the duvet so she could see that I still had my pyjama bottoms on but I thought that might look a little too forced. Mum was the kind of lady that if something seemed a little too obvious she would start suspecting its authenticity.   
“Morning Jackie!” The Doctor grinned in that way that made me think he knew he was about to get slapped by my mother again.  
With credit to my mum, she barely missed a beat. “Morning you two,” she said with a big smile, “your dad is making pancakes for breakfast, best go down soon if you want some.” She placed the clean washing on the edge of the bed and quickly left, closing the door behind her.  
The Doctor and I sat in silence for a moment, staring at the door, hardly believing what had just happened before we both glanced at one another.  
We couldn't help it. We laughed.

We decided to go into the kitchen together. The Doctor refused to allow me to go like a lamb to the slaughter and face my mum by myself and there was no chance I was about to let the Doctor go, unarmed and alone, near my mother when she was that close to very sharp knives. So after arguing outside the kitchen door for a few minutes, we entered together and allowed the smell of wonderful food to wash over us. It was a very different smell from when my mum was cooking; for one thing, the whole house didn't smell of BURN.   
My dad grinned as soon as he saw us entering, in the way that said 'I know what you diiiiid' in, what I imagined as, the most childish voice ever. My mum was sitting at the kitchen table, reading one of her precious magazines, stirring a cup of tea and ignoring us completely. Dad pushed a stack of American-style pancakes toward me. “Give those to your mum,” he didn't even have the decency to wipe the grin off his face. “Yours are next and the syrup's over on the table.” I turned and started walking away but lingered long enough to hear Pete say “want some pancakes Doctor? You must be hungry!” I rolled my eyes and gave my mum the pancakes, plonking down on the seat next to hers.

She didn't look up from her magazine. It was only now that I noticed she had a pen in her hand and was doing the word puzzle that she only ever did for fun. I never knew her to actually submit it for any prize but it didn't actually matter anyway because most of her answers ended up wrong as, instead of figuring out the actual word, she always made up new ways to spell other words to make them fit. I remembered telling her that banana had three a's and the word for yellow fruit was probably lemon but she didn't care. She just continued spelling it bnana to spite me.   
She took the syrup and poured a generous portion over the top of her pancakes and I found that I had no idea what to say to her, or even how to say it. I'd never been in this position before. I'd always kicked Mickey out before my mum even woke up.   
I suddenly wondered what my mum thought the Doctor and I got up to in the T.A.R.D.I.S if her easy reaction this morning had anything to go by. I found that I needed to defend our adventures together. They were not... that... that... sordid!   
“Nothing happened.” I told her quickly as she picked up her fork. She didn't look at me and I did not add that it wasn't for lack of trying that nothing had occurred this morning. I was still in the process of calming down.   
“Mhmm.” Was all she said. She didn't believe me.   
“Honestly! Nothing did!” She smirked at my tone as she cut her food with the side of her fork, leaving the knife untouched beside her. Maybe she was keeping it clean to stab the Doctor with.   
“Mhmm.” She replied.  
“Mum!”   
She laughed. “Come on now Rose. You're a big girl now and can sleep with whoever you want! You don't need to fib to me. Just make sure you're careful because I don't think I'm ready to be a grandmother. Not yet.”   
“MUM!” 

The guard at the front desk took one look at the Doctor and immediately buzzed us in, obviously not wanting a repeat of yesterday's argument that ended up in me being quite late for work. It was a weight off my mind to be honest: I needed the Doctor with me now the Pods had started going walkabouts and I was not about to argue with the guard for half an hour everyday. He didn't even have his guest-pass.  
This made him very happy.   
“This means I'm not a guest anymore! Goodbye guest-pass, hellooooo gravy train.” He celebrated as we stepped into the lift.   
I looked at him. “You're just allowed to run around the building and that's only if you're a good boy and don't touch anything you're not supposed to. You won't get paid and they own anything you discover... You're working for free... That's worse than being a guest.”   
“I don't have to do anything though.” He pointed out.  
“You will anyway.” I replied. “It's what you do. You can't resist poking about.”   
If he had a smart response to that, he did not choose to share.   
The atmosphere had not changed much after what had almost happened this morning, though it seemed that both of us were being very careful not to touch one another or not to step too close to the other in case of contact. It had taken me a long time to calm down and I did not want to be in that state in the serious location that was work. I didn't know if that was the reason why the Doctor avoided contact with me but I had an inkling... His eyes practically smouldered when he looked at me.   
I shook that thought from my head. Calm. Cool. Collected. That was me. Serene.   
I think I was hoping that the Pod would have done a magical reappearing trick because when we entered Lab Six and saw the empty incubator, my stomach dropped like a stone. Disappointment flooded through me and I sighed. If I couldn't find the Pod, I'd have to tell Ella that it was missing. Since their arrival, Ella had dedicated most of her waking hours to these things and the moment I walk in to take over, one goes missing. Well done Rose. Idiot.   
The Doctor shoved his hands into his coat pockets and leaned to the side to whisper in my ear. “What do we do now?” He asked.  
I jumped more than I should have and stared at the Doctor for longer than was strictly necessary, my cheeks burning. “Um...” And the award for eloquence goes to... “Um... I don't know.” I ran my hands through my hair. “I guess I was hoping that... It'd just be... there again. Coming to work was the end of my brilliant plan.”   
“What were you doing before the Pod went missing?” He asked, moving around to the computer. I sighed and followed.   
“I was performing tests on the Pods... just normal stuff. It all came back looking like normal plant life – seeds, that kind of thing. But when you told me that they were an alien race... I started different tests. Results haven't come back yet.”  
“Which one?”   
“The one that went missing. The other hasn't really been touched.”   
“Maybe it didn't like you poking it with needles so it went for a walk.”   
“You said it was dead.”   
“That doesn't mean you can poke it with sharp sticks.” He pushed his glasses on his nose and approached the incubator. “The human race is always so ready to think that they have the right to everything that falls on this planet. Rocks, spaceships... an alien race... You stand up and start auctioning things off to the highest bidder – thinking that it's your right to do so because it simply fell here.” He straightened up. “You think you have the right to mutilate dead bodies but if someone starts carving up a human body, it's immoral.” He looked at me. I had my arms crossed.  
“Are you finished?”  
“Finished?”   
“Yes, are you finished insulting my species?”   
“What do you expect?” He pointed at the dissected Pod in its wall case. “If that was alive, would you still be doing these kinds of tests on it? Would you have cut it open to see how all the bits worked?”   
“No, of course I wouldn't!” I snapped. “But the thing is dead, you said it yourself.”  
“How would you feel if someone started cutting your mother's body up? If she were dead?”   
“It's not the same.”   
“How is it not the same, Rose?!”   
“Because she's my mother!”   
“And that thing was something's brother or sister! Or son, daughter, mother or even a father!”   
“Why are you blaming me? It's not like I killed it! I didn't dissect it!”   
“But you're condoning this!”   
“How am I? You just started insulting humans and you're expecting me to just... take it!”   
“What part of what I said was wrong, Rose?”   
I clenched my fists and stared at the computer screen. Anything was better than looking at the Doctor and the dissected Pod. “Get out.”   
“What?”   
“Get out.” I didn't want to look at him.   
I heard his angry footsteps, a moment of quiet before the door to the Lab opened with a sigh. “Just so you know.” He stilled and turned to look at me. “That human race... remember that you're part of it now. I'd think long and hard about what that means.”   
He left.   
I clung onto the computer desk so hard that my knuckles went white. No crying. No. Not going to cry.  
I fell to my knees and wept. 

Working was better. I was not going to dwell.   
I was standing there at the computer with my phone in my hand, gently scrolling down to find Ella's phone number. If I had lost one of the Pods, the least I could do was be honest and admit it to her. Only me, him, the cleaner and George knew about it... Ella deserved to know.  
I found her number and set it up for the call, pressing the phone to my ear.   
_Heya, this is Ella. Can't reach the gadget at this time so leave a message and I'll ignore it! Thanks!_   
I disconnected the call. I didn't believe in leaving messages.   
So Ella's phone was off... I tapped my phone against my lips. What about John?   
Bingo, the phone was actually ringing.  
“ _Hullo?_ ” He sounded very tired.   
“Hey John, it's Rose. Can I have a quick chat with Ella please?”   
There was a moment of silence. “ _Ella isn't very well, Rose_.”   
“Yeah, I know that but I just wanted to tell her something.”   
“ _Now is... bad. Sorry Rose. Maybe you could tell me?_ ”   
I chewed my lip. This project was Ella's baby... but then John was her husband and ran the whole department with her. It was just as much his project as hers. “Um... one of the cleaners came into the Lab last night and... one of the Pods were missing. We checked the security tapes and there's nothing... just a flash and static... I'm sorry – it all happened when I was at home.”   
There was a stretch of silence.  
“John?”   
“ _I'm sorry Rose, but this isn't..._ ” He sighed. “ _I have too much... I can't deal with this right now_.”   
“What... what do you mean? What's happening?”   
“ _... I... Ella is..._ ”   
“What? What's the matter with Ella?”   
“ _I'm sorry, Rose. I have to go_.” And the line went dead. I stared at the phone, a horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach.   
Ella was sick. John didn't want to talk. Something was wrong with Ella. Something was very wrong with Ella. That was the only thing that would keep John from his work. Ella was very, very sick.   
I couldn't stop the panic washing over me. Ella was sick.   
Ella was the only one who cared enough when I first arrived on this side of the coin. She helped me find the strength to carry on, while George proved to me I wasn't on my own. George and Ella were my friends. I would... die if anything happened to Ella... I hadn't even had the time to tell her what had happened after my dimension jumping...   
I whimpered, closing my phone and squeezing it tightly in my hands, as if I was sending all my energy, everything was me into the phone and to my friend – wherever she was... I couldn't stop the tears from falling, my shoulders from shaking or the sobs that were forcing their way from my body. I couldn't stop it. It all hurt.  
“Rose?” I turned. The Doctor was standing in the doorway, so deep was my inner turmoil that I didn't even hear the lab door open. He stood there for a moment, our previous argument obviously playing on his mind but something obviously clicked in his head and he took four long strides into the room and pulled me into the enclosure of his arms. “What is it?” He asked, softly.  
I clung to him like the life-raft he had turned out to be, so many times, over and over. “Ella's sick.” I choked out.  
“You knew that,” he whispered to me, gently.  
I shook my head, gripping onto his coat. “Ella's very, very sick.” I raised my eyes to the Doctor. “The only thing that could keep J-John... f-from his work is Ella's health... When... Ella was sick before, he... he refused to come to work. He never left her bedside... Lewis... he told me.” I was shaking. “I... don't w-want anything bad to happen... to her!”  
“She's a friend.” He understood.  
My face crumbled. “She... she was the only one... the only... one who... who cared!”   
My head was pounding. I'd had enough of crying and confusion. I just wanted...   
“What can I do?” He asked.


	7. I Need to Think About Him For Once

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rose has a lot to think about and a lot to consider...
> 
> I think I suck at chapter summaries...

I sat at the kitchen table with my head in my hands, propped up on my elbows while staring dimly at the frilly white tablecloth that was a little too small for the surface of the table itself. I remembered asking about it once but mum insisted that it was style. I think she always wanted a small table in the kitchen back home so she could shove an undersized tablecloth on it and call it interior design. We just never had room.  
Not such a problem anymore.  
My head was pounding. I wondered absently just how many times that had actually happened over the last few days, while the Doctor approached me with two steaming mugs, smirking as I glowered at him. The Doctor: My headache. Despite my derision, I took my mug gratefully and breathed in the rich chocolatey scent, wrapping my cold hands around it and holding it close to my body.   
Mum and dad had gone out earlier after the Doctor and I had left for work and had left a quick note stating that they were out and dinner consisted of whatever I wanted to throw together.  
I decided I was going to make a curry.  
Ingredients: Phone, money and the doorbell. The food had been ordered and now we were just waiting.   
I felt empty, and not just because I hadn't eaten since the morning. Once again I had cried myself to oblivion and it was starting to become a regular thing – ever since the Doctor arrived I had been a tumbling, weeping, screaming ball of … of... BLEGH! I couldn't even keep my brain running on a sane level for longer than five minutes.   
The atmosphere with him was all messed up too. Before he had walked in on me crying, we were both still pretty much stewing from the argument we had and none of that had been properly addressed. I guess I forgot what the real Doctor had told me... this man, his double, was exactly what he was like when we had first met. He was angry and vengeful and it was my job to make him better, like I had with him.  
But how did I do that?  
What was I meant to do?  
The Doctor was sat across from me, sipping his tea casually and looking so much like the real Doctor that I was at a loss. How did I make him better? How was I supposed to do it if I didn't know? I sighed and sipped my drink. And this time he was angry at me and it was just as likely to start raining lollipops as it was that he would actually apologise.  
“I'm sorry.” I resisted the urge to look out the window, mainly because I was gaping at him.   
“You're sorry?” I asked despite myself. I didn't really want to make him angrier but there it was, incredulity and all.  
He sighed and gave me a look. I shut up.  
“What I said was unfair,” he told me softly staring into his tea. “It... adjusting is hard.”   
Bam. There it was. The sudden guilt shot through me like a bolt, taking away my bitterness from the argument faster than I would have liked, leaving me cold and numb. I had been so selfishly wrapped up in my own little feelings that I hadn't even spared a thought about what he was feeling about all this. This was all new to him. He had his life taken away... the life he had lived for nine hundred years... and it was just... gone!  
And all I could do was think about myself. _What. A. Bitch._   
He looked up at me, unaware of my inner turmoil. “I should not have taken it all out on you.”   
I didn't trust myself to speak. I couldn't. Did he know that I hadn't worried once about how he was feeling? I'd worried about myself and I'd worried about the real Doctor but this man, this man sitting in front of me drinking tea out of a mug shaped like a bloody sheep had been wounded the most and I hadn't spared him a single thought.   
How did it feel? To be left on a beach in a parallel world because you were wrong on the inside. Because you were born into the wrong circumstances. Because it hurt.  
A wave of pity washed through me then and I reached forward automatically to touch his hand. Unfortunately, that meant I had to rise a few inches from my seat and it was not as much of a smooth move as I imagined. I also guessed that I looked more than a little daft.   
He smiled at me and lowered his mug. “Don't look at me like that. You look like you're about to tell me that my rabbit has just died.”   
“You don't have a rabbit.”  
“I know.” I stared. “But I like rabbits.”   
“Do you want a rabbit?”   
He gave me a strange look. “No, what would I do with a rabbit?”   
I gave up.   
Dinner came not long after that and we settled in the lounge watching some dreary depressing film full of men and women crying at each other in the rain. I was sat on the floor with the Doctor on the sofa on the seat next to me, with his knee resting against my shoulder.   
I'd ordered food from that place before, which is why I'd gone for them then, remembering the meal with fondness, but today, I was a little disappointed. It didn't really taste of much. “How's your food?” I turned to look at the Doctor, who was sat, mouth open with his fork suspended halfway through its journey. He was staring at the screen. I snorted and he jumped, looking down at me.   
“What?” He asked, almost hurt.  
“Sorry,” I coughed after I'd stopped snickering. “How's your food?”   
He nodded. “For human take-away, it's good. I've had some bad experience with human take-away.”  
“We had take-away on our first date.” I told him with a grin.  
“Chips.” He agreed. We sat in silence for a little bit longer until he broke it, kind of tentatively. “Torchwood has changed.” He said.  
I nodded, remembering how it must have looked to his eyes. It was barely running when I had arrived, with only a few barely manned departments and we had, along with some rich scientists who believed in the nonsense we and the others were running, had built the thing from the ground up. They funded the renovation of the office block we already had, thanks to the original owners, and the wages of the staff... It wasn't perfect but it worked... better than the other one did on the other side of the coin...  
It was a sort of second home to me, I realised as I explained the differences to him and what happened in all the time between us finding each other again. It was my link to the Doctor – space and aliens – it was what I knew. It was home.  
Bedtime once again was awkward. After how well I slept with the Doctor beside me the night before I didn't really want to go back to lying on my own thinking about him, so close but so far away. I didn't want to lie there and remember him holding me, his kiss... I didn't want to lie there and yearn.   
I watched his indecision for a long time as we stood in front of my door like we had the night before, but this time, my mind was clear and I was able to assess the situation properly. Did I trust myself?   
No.  
Did I trust him?  
I watched his dear face as he hesitated. He smiled, reached for my hand before he leaned forward and kissed me once, softly on the lips. He gave my hand a fond squeeze before he released me and turned to his own room. He gave me a final tired smile and closed the door behind him.  
Well he didn't.  
My room was cold when I entered.

_The girl was pale, she was shaking, her hair was unkempt... but she had a look on her face that terrified me.  
I stepped away from my lab table, dropping my scalpel. “Erm, John, We... um...”  
“I … n... n... to talk... to... you.” She gasped. Her chest was heaving as she stared at me and her hands were gripping the doorframe of our sad little broken down lab so hard that her knuckles went white. When I stumbled back, looking around for my husband, the girl took a small step forward, reaching a hand out. “No... I just... let me... talk.”  
I was panicking. This woman was an unknown and she was standing in a restricted area – fair enough it wasn't quite so restricted anymore with the overthrowing and thus breakdown of the original Torchwood – like she had a purpose. A civilian had a purpose in a closed lab? I was fully aware that we weren't supposed to be here... and she knew that we were here. How?  
“Who... who are you?” The girl stepped forward, sucking in another painful breath as she placed a hand on her heaving chest. She'd obviously been running. She lifted a finger.   
“Sec.” She gasped. I waited patiently as she regained her breath. She was a pretty girl, young and pale with blonde hair and glittering eyes, but that might've been because she was so out of breath.   
“Just tell me who you are please,” I said when she seemed to have most of her breath back. “My husband will be back any minute and he doesn't really appreciate uninvited guests...”   
The girl nodded and swallowed hard. “My name is Rose Tyler.” She told me. “And I want a job.”   
A profound silence followed this statement. “A... job.”   
She nodded. “Yes. I want a job.”  
“We don't... I mean to say that... there aren't any-”  
“Look.” The girl snapped. “I have had a really bad day. I'm angry, I'm hurt, I have a crackin' headache and I am so, so tired. I have lost... he's gone and I can't go back to what I did before. This leaves me with one choice.”   
I stared. “And... that is?”   
Rose ran her hand through her hair. “Torchwood.”   
“But-”  
She halted my arguments with a hand. “Mickey told me that it's barely running but the word barely means there's something left and I want to join.”  
I looked at the trembling girl in front of me. My husband always said I was perceptive, that I could tell that something was wrong with somebody before they knew it themselves, and he also said that I would do anything to help anyone who needed it. He said I was a saint. I didn't need my perceptiveness to understand that this girl was in agony. I didn't need my stupid urges to help people to know that this girl needed me. She looked... pathetic.  
“Who is he?” I asked her softly.  
She hesitated. “You mean Mickey?” I could tell she hoped I meant Mickey.   
“No... not Mickey. I mean the one you spoke of before... the one who's... gone?”   
Her face crumpled. I quickly approached the girl that had been, up until very recently, held together by hardly anything, something that disappeared as soon as I mentioned the man that was gone. She trembled as I approached and practically fell into my arms, breaking into harsh bitter tears that she all but coughed up from the very core of her. She clung onto me like a life raft and I smoothed her unkempt hair flat as I spoke, what I hoped were, reassuring words into her ear.   
“He's gone.” She whispered between her tears. “He's gone. He's gone. He's gone.”_

Sleep wasn't coming. I lay in my bed, holding the sleeve of the blazer the Doctor had left here this morning when he went to his en suite to grab a shower before we headed downstairs like naughty children. I pulled it closer and pressed the fabric to my nose. Yep, it still smelled like him.  
My brain was too active; I was thinking about my Doctor, about the missing Pods, about what John did and didn't say and what it meant for my friend. I wanted to help everyone but I didn't know where to start. Would John let me visit Ella? Just so I knew she was okay? 

_“Why here?” I asked the girl. She had calmed down though every so often she sniffled and had to wipe her eyes with the back of her sleeve. “Why on earth do you want to work for Torchwood of all places?”  
Rose chewed her lip. “I know... things.”   
I smiled, kindly. “We all know things, Miss Tyler. But what is special about what you know?”  
She returned my smile, slowly. “How long do you have?” _

I didn't remember falling asleep, but I opened my eyes and light was steadily streaming through the partially open curtains and dappling on my duvet cover, illuminating the patterns and colours to make them impossibly bright for my over tired eyes. I turned my head to look over at my alarm clock.  
09:23 – and it hadn't gone off. Saturday. Lie-in. Bliss. I rolled over onto my other side and the sensation of fabric on my skin that did not match that of my duvet cover woke me a little bit more and I looked down at my body. I smiled, despite my tiredness.  
Somehow, at some point in the night I had managed to pull the Doctor's blazer on. Fair enough it was backwards but it was warm and it served whatever purpose my brain had thought up when it decided to put it on without my consent: I was happy. Warm, cosy and happy.   
The Doctor wasn't going to get it back.   
I pulled it closer around me and buried my head in the fabric, closing my eyes and snuggling closer. For that brief moment on a Saturday morning, I allowed myself to forget the hurt and imagine. I let myself dream, just for a moment.

 

His face was close.   
I blinked.  
Too close.  
I yelped.  
He laughed.  
I blushed and hit him over the head with my pillow.  
“You're supposed to knock.” I grumbled as I sat up, rubbing my head. I looked at my alarm clock again. 10:54. Yikes.  
“I did. Three times. Half an hour ago. Hey! That's my blazer!”   
I gripped it, flopping back down. “Mine.”   
The Doctor stood up to his full height, smirking. He was wearing a different suit today, one that actually fit properly instead of the ones he had been borrowing from my dad.  
I pointed, sleepily. “Where'd you get that?” He looked down and his grin grew.  
“Your mum and dad got me some clothes as I had nothing for myself.” He smoothed the suit flat. “How'd I look?” He arched an eyebrow and I fought not to giggle.  
I smiled. “Like you.” He grinned – that heartbreaking grin that I loved and I laughed. I reached up and pulled him down with me and he landed next to me with a soft “oof”.  
“You look better.” He told me once he had made himself comfortable. He was lying on his stomach next to where I was cuddled, holding his blazer tightly. “Happier.”  
“I had lots and lots of sleep.” I told him, feeling kind of daft. “Lots.”  
“Lots?” He grinned. “Oodles? Oodles of sleep?”   
I wrinkled my nose. “A bit less than an oodle.” I told him.  
“But more than an ickle?”   
“Oh a lot more than an ickle.”   
We stared at each other for a moment and snorted together, revelling in the silliness.   
“This is good.” I told him reaching out and ruffling his hair slightly. “We're good.”   
He grinned. “Good.”  
Suddenly, I frowned. “Hang on. Where did you get that coat?”   
He returned my confused look. “Coat?”  
“The coat! First day of work, you had a coat!” I felt like I was blabbering. “The coat!”  
He slowly nodded. “The coat. I see. Oh! Yeah, Pete found it the day after I first arrived here and he bought it.”   
I blinked, surprised. My dad had bought the Doctor a gift? I smiled and reached out again, cupping the Doctor's face in my palm. “My daddy liiiikes you.” I sang softly. His smile faded a little bit.  
Suddenly, he reached up and grasped my hand hard, his fingers closing around mine quickly and securely as his eyes burned into mine. He looked intense, like fire but his intensity did not burn me, it kept me safe. “I like you too.” I smiled.  
“I... Rose... Everything I've ever had...” He told me. “I've lost.”   
“I know.”  
His grip increased. “I lost you... once.”  
“I know.”  
“...Don't... don't ask me to do it again.” He had tears in his eyes. I pulled myself forward as he lifted himself up slightly on his knees, still clinging onto my hand, while my other hand slowly placed itself on the other side of his face.   
“D-Doctor... I'm... I'm not going anywhere.”   
He blinked. “But you did.” A tear dropped. “You went away. I lost you. I lost you and you were gone. I couldn't... I can't lose you again, Rose Tyler.”   
“You won't.”  
“Can you promise that?”   
I was silent for a time, watching his urgent face, until I found that I hadn't an answer to give him. I remembered telling him that I would be with him forever... and then I lost him. I couldn't promise.  
Everything could change.   
I wanted to promise, I wanted nothing more than to wipe that terrified look off his face with those easy words but it would be a lie – if I promised and something happened to me, it would be the worst thing I could do. So instead I reached out and pulled him into my arms and he fell into the embrace, releasing my hand so he could crush me to him.  
This was my broken man.  
And I hadn't even tried to fix him.


	8. I Need Help

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Something is happening to Rose...  
> And the Doctor finally has an opportunity to see Ella... and discover the nature of her sickness...

Mum was back to her best. I pushed away the plate of eggs, wrinkling my nose as she pottered around the kitchen, placing a plate of egg on toast in front of the Doctor before giving Tony the bowl of cereal she had just added milk to. Pete was in a suit and was chewing on a piece of toast as he rushed around pouring boiling water into one of those ceramic to-go mugs. Despite it being Saturday, the one day the family managed to be all together as one, he was off to a meeting, hence the deep scowl on his face.  
Jackie turned to him and pulled his collar as he stirred his coffee with a spoon. “Hey, woman! Careful! Hot stuff here!”   
“You look like a blind man dressed yer.” She said to him, sorting the fabric so it lay flat. “You got your briefcase?”   
“Yep.”   
“Car keys?”   
“Yep.”  
“Coffee?”   
He slammed the lid on top of the ceramic to-go mug and lifted it to Jackie's eye-line. “Yep.”   
She kissed him softly. “Do good.” She told him with a smile.  
He winked. “Trust me on this.”   
I watched them glumly, happy for them on the inside but without the strength to show it outwardly. I was hungry and all I had been given were two lumps of charcoal that once had the potential to be fried eggs and now we were out of anything I actually wanted to eat. Anything I nibbled on tasted like sawdust.  
As Pete left, mum turned around to face me, smiling. “So what are you planning to do today?” She asked me.   
Good question. The Doctor had shuffled across in his seat to be nearer to my little brother who was busy splashing milk everywhere, telling the strange man about what he did at nursery the day before in that wonderful way two year-olds do. He seemed fascinated by the boy and vice-versa. They spoke quietly together while me and my mum watched from the other side of the kitchen table, our amused looks mostly hidden behind the large vase of daisies that happened to be my mum's favourite flowers.   
“He's good with him.” Jackie told me in a quiet voice. “I can never get Tony to eat his breakfast without making a big mess but look! He's got him eatin' like a proper human being.”   
I smiled. “He just has a way with people, mum.” I turned and looked over at her. “A little bird told me that you went shopping for him yesterday.”  
Mum shrugged. “Got him some suits. Pete didn't mind lending him some but I thought it might be better for the Doctor if he had his own things.” She cocked her head to one side. “Maybe it will help him feel at home here.”  
“You're trying to make him feel at home?” I found myself surprised.  
She blinked at me. “Of course I am. He's lost everything, ain't he? He's stuck in this world with nothing but the clothes he had on his back when he arrived.”   
I grimaced and worried a small chip on the side of the plate that my sad breakfast was occupying with my fingertip. “Seems like everyone understood that but me.”   
My mum watched me for a time but then reached out and gently stroked my back, giving a small smile. “You're too close, sweetheart.”   
I sighed. That was no excuse.  
And that's how our life began on this side of the coin. It didn't take us long to slip into some sort of routine and although it was strange, it was welcome. The Doctor was accepted in the Torchwood building, thanks in large to the fact that his reputation from the first day preceded him and everyone just let him in without question and he continued to follow me to work thanks to just a complete lack of anything else to do. Mum and dad soon became used to our permanent guest though it was only my mum that questioned my relationship with him.  
“Was he not good then?” She asked me that Sunday morning as I was busying myself with making a strong cup of coffee. I was certain I was coming down with something, I couldn't even smell anything anymore, damn head cold.   
“What?” I asked, chewing on the corner of a piece of toast.  
She nodded to the Doctor who was patiently eating a bowl of muesli and ignoring us completely. He had woken me up again though it was a little bit earlier than the day before.   
“You haven't been together since the other night. Disappointing?”   
My eyes widened as I caught her meaning. “Mum!”  
She laughed evilly. “Well, how do you account for it?”   
I lowered my mug and leaned closer toward her. “Now listen mum, I told you. Nothing happened.”  
She laughed again. “You're so easy to wind up. But aren't you keeping him waiting?”  
Not for that, I thought glancing at him. His eyes were resting upon a newspaper that Pete had thrown at him while he ate and I smiled inwardly, knowing that he would be scouring the stories looking for anything out of the ordinary – looking for evidence of our former life – so we could have another adventure. He had never looked so human, not when he was in my bed only the other night, not when he was glaring at the guest-pass like it had just called him something unfriendly. He was just a man, reading a newspaper... and it made my heart ache.   
It must've be so hard for him.   
Even his room felt human. For a start, it felt lived in which kind of surprised me. I would imagine it to be immaculate, tidy and just somewhere he slept, but it felt like a sanctuary to me... He had to have his own space, now that he lacked the T.A.R.D.I.S.  
I had entered because my mum had given me a pile of washing and instructed me to change the sheets for him while he went with dad to do some food shopping.  
It was a mess. The duvet was thrown off the bed and I imagined it doing so as he leapt out of bed as soon as the alarm went off to start his day and failing to re-make it after getting himself dressed. His growing collection of clothing did not sit in the wardrobe or the drawers that we set aside for his use and instead lay in chaotic heaps. Scraps of metal tubing and wires littered the floor from bringing his project home with him and attempting and failing to complete it. I stepped inside and smiled. It smelled of him. This was his place.   
Not wanting to probe too much, I changed the sheets and left, closing the door behind me.   
We lived like this for a few more days and on Tuesday we were back in lab six. Well, I was. The Doctor was elsewhere trying to finish his project, the new sonic screwdriver.   
I had been standing at the computer, rewriting a generic report to make it seem completely new and fresh and not just a repeat of what I had been sending for the last couple of days.   
“So, John was actually telling the truth.” I whirled around. “Rose is back and under her watchful eye, one of the Pods has gone walkabouts.” A tall blonde man was strolling into the lab, grinning widely as he saw my own face crack into a bright smile. He opened his arms as he stepped into the lab proper and without hesitation I dropped everything and ran up to meet him, straight into his waiting arms. “It's been a while.” He said softly.  
“It has.” I hit him with the back of my hand as I stepped out of the embrace. “Why didn't you come see me?”   
The man shrugged and fingered his guest-pass, letting it catch the light. “They don't really mind me walking around ETR unchecked because of John but when I start creeping into TD they start questioning why I'm in a restricted area without clearance.”   
I laughed. “Oh Lewis, ever heard of dropping the name?”   
His face became serious. “No one was supposed to know that you'd switched though Rose. The Dimension Cannon was strictly need to know and I didn't need to know.”   
I frowned. “Ella was the one who told me about the cannon, it only makes sense that you'd know too.”   
Lewis ran a hand through his hair. “Eh, people don't really understand how much Ella and I talk. I guess they think that she is devoted to the company... friendships and stuff come after.”  
I turned back to the lab as Lewis strolled around me to look at the remaining two Pods. The dissected one was starting to make me feel sick looking at it so I had dimmed the display lights a touch so it wasn't the entire focus for the room. “Ella is devoted to the company.” I told him. “She spends every waking minute here.”   
He sighed. “Well she did.”   
There was something to his tone so I turned around to face him again. “How is she?”  
“Not great.” Lewis chewed on his nail, staring at the Pod. “John never leaves her side.”   
“What happened?” The look Lewis sent to me then was pained and he slowly opened his mouth to reply but whatever he was about to say was interrupted by the sudden hiss of the lab door.  
“Rose, Rose! I've nearly finished it! Just need one more -” He stopped as he saw Lewis. “Hello.” He grinned hugely.  
“Hello yourself.” Lewis' eyebrow shot up. “Who are you?”  
“I'm the Doctor.” I stood and stared at the two men and the sudden stiffening of Lewis' back. It wasn't as if he needed to try to be taller, I thought, he already towered above the man I was crazy about. But then I remembered, Lewis was a doctor, a real one and one that took his vocation very seriously.   
“Doctor who?” He frowned.  
“Just the Doctor,” he thrust his hands into his pockets and strolled toward the computer where my report was still sitting, unfinished and unsatisfactory.   
“He's with me,” I clarified at the confused look Lewis sent me. “Doctor, this is Lewis. He's... Ella's husband's brother.”   
Lewis laughed. “You could've said I was Ella's brother-in-law... a bit easier to get your mouth around there, Rosie.”   
“Shurrup.” I snapped. I joined the Doctor at my computer.  
“You spelled 'variation' wrong.” He told me as I approached him. “Are you okay?”  
I glared. “What? What's wrong with it?”  
“The a and the I are in the wrong order.” I corrected my mistake and turned fully to the Doctor.   
“What were you excited about then? You were babbling when you ran in.” Lewis was bending close to the remaining whole Pod and ignoring the Doctor and I completely. He grinned and fished in his inside pocket, pulling out a smart, thin, cylindrical object with flourish. He offered it to me and I took it, gingerly.   
“Is this?” I asked, examining it. It was about the same size as the old one, a little bit thinner and a little bit sleeker and that tiniest bit lighter. “Is this your new... screwdriver?”  
“Nearly! It's nearly my sonic screwdriver. I've just got one more little bit, one more component and then it's done.” He took it from me and kissed it swiftly. “But until then, it's just a pretty stick.”   
“Doctor.” We both turned to Lewis who was now facing us both. He had a look on his face that I did not recognise, and I had known him for most of the time I was trapped over here. He looked conflicted. “I...”  
The Doctor frowned and approached the taller man, frowning a little. “Lewis?”  
“I'm a Doctor. A good Doctor – no, one of the best... but... I... I'm at a loss.” He lowered his head and my heart went out to him. He was Ella's childhood friend, the person who introduced her to the man, his brother, who ended up being her husband and so, the couple's closest friend. “I don't know what's wrong with Ella. We... we need help.”   
The Doctor glanced at me and nodded before he approached Lewis again.  
“So what's happened to her?”  
Lewis shrugged. “We... just don't know. All I've heard from John is that it started gradually with different symptoms popping up out of nowhere. It's like nothing I've seen... and I've tried everything but John won't listen to reason. He won't let me take her to the hospital, no matter how much I beg. He's borrowed so much from the Torchwood stores that I'm surprised no one has suspected anything.”  
“Why won't he take her?”   
“All he says is that they wouldn't be able to do anything for her. I'm the only one he trusts...  
I turned around and faced the computer again, chewing my lip as the Doctor asked his questions.   
“If she's not in the hospital, where is she?”  
“She's...” Lewis hesitated.   
I frowned heavily as I tapped keys on the keyboard, editing my lame excuse for a report. I had to do this every day, even though every piece of information was exactly the same as anything I had written the day before – pointless, repetitious and extremely dull – and it was starting to grate on my nerves. The boys had stopped talking and I sighed, staring at the screen, looking for any inspiration to make this seem less like that same repetitive drone. With no more information to play with, I couldn't do anything else. I had nothing to prove that what the Doctor said was true, that these were an alien species and not plant life, and I was so desperate to.   
I turned around again, the silence pressing in on me a little too much so I couldn't concentrate. I went to verbally bash them but what I saw stilled the words on my tongue, frozen in absolute panic.  
They were still talking.  
But I couldn't hear them.  
I pressed my hand on my ear once. Nothing. I tried the other. Nothing. I was less gentle, slamming both palms on my ears in a desperate attempt to hear something and the Doctor's mouth stopped moving as his eyes sliced into mine. He stared for a moment, frowning and I saw his mouth move again, but no sound followed. I stared, terrified.   
_Doctor. Help. Me._ I felt my mouth form the words but to my ears nothing came out.   
He hurried to me, hands seizing my shoulders and slowly spoke to me. I watched his lips desperately. _Rose. What. Is. Wrong. You. Look. Terrified._   
Again, I opened my mouth to reply. _I. Can't. Hear. You. I told him. I. Can't. Hear. Anything. There. Is. Nothing._ I tapped my ears as if to fortify my meaning.  
The Doctor scowled. _Lewis. I. Want. To. Have. A. Word. With. Your. Brother._

The Doctor wasn't taking his eyes off Rose. She was sitting at a table in the cafeteria with a cup of water sitting in front of her with her hands clasped just in front of it. Her knuckles were white and she wasn't making any move to drink anything. She was frozen.  
Lewis had phoned his brother almost as soon as the Doctor had turned on him, not even questioning but staring for a stunted second before he leapt for his phone, dialling and speaking a quick sentence to whoever had picked up. “You'd better come to the cafeteria.” and they had left to meet him down there.  
It didn't take long for John to arrive and he definitely did not expect the sudden onslaught he received.  
Lewis nodded his head to the door John had just walked in through. “he's here.” He said softly to the Doctor.  
“You!” Before John could even open his mouth to speak, the Doctor had rounded on him, standing up so suddenly that his chair fell back and hit the floor with a crack that made Lewis wince. Rose just sat there, watching them but saying nothing. He pointed to the only chair that was not occupied or currently lying on the floor. “Sit.”   
The poor man sat, looking around at the faces watching him. He saw Rose and frowned.  
“Rose? What's... what's happened?” He looked up at the Doctor and frowned. “Who the hell are you?”  
The Doctor's face did not change. “I'm the one asking the questions here. All you have to worry about is being honest with me,” the Doctor growled, venomously, “because Rose has lost her hearing completely in a matter of seconds and judging by what Lewis told me-” John glared at his brother. “-I'm guessing that whatever is wrong with Ella isn't exactly natural. So talk to me or I will start making my own assumptions and you don't want that.”   
“I'm guessing you're going to want to see her.” John seemed resigned.   
“You guessed right.” 

Rose followed, clinging onto the Doctor's hand as John and his brother led them both up the stairs from the hallway that housed Lab Six. The Doctor didn't say a word and neither did the two brothers; they just climbed the stairs in silence. No one had anything to say.   
She clung onto the Doctor's hand and he gave it a comforting squeeze.   
“You'll be okay.” He told her, knowing that she couldn't hear him, but hoping that she could at least read his lips. Ella was very sick, he knew that from what Rose had told him, and he knew in his lonely human heart that whatever had happened to her and what was now happening to Rose was connected. He wasn't going to let anything happen to Rose. He wasn't going to lose her again.   
He wasn't going to lose her again.   
After several flights they reached a small landing that seemed quite a lot larger than the previous ones they had passed and it held two large doors instead of the one that they normally encountered. Rose frowned deeply and looked at the Doctor, who then sent a similar facial expression to the brothers.  
“Secret lab.” Lewis explained as John approached and tapped on the tiny numberpad on the wall to the right of the door.  
“How very sci-fi.” The Doctor murmured as the door hissed open and the party wondered in.  
The room beyond was quite large and whitewashed like the rest of the Torchwood building but that was where all similarity ceased.   
For a start, it looked more like a hospital ward than anything Rose had seen before with six beds lining the walls, each with movable screens to protect the privacy of any patients that happened to be in the ward. At that moment in time, the only bed that was occupied was the one at the end, nearest the window.  
Rose gasped.  
“Doctor, I would like to introduce you to Ella.” Lewis said with a sigh.   
A blonde woman lay in the bed, hooked up to countless wires and tubes that were in turn connected to a huge array of monitors and screens, all giving different readings for the health of the woman that lay in front of them.  
The Doctor peered at the screen, pushing his glasses onto his nose.  
“What?”   
“We know.”  
“But this woman... she should be dead.”  
“We know.”  
“But...”  
“We know.”


	9. Ella and Rose

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor now needs to discover what is making both Ella and Rose sick...  
> And he's running out of time

The Doctor was crouched by the beeping screens, monitors and machines, his glasses perched on his nose and his hands tracing the lines on assorted readouts. Lights winked, lines traced and Ella's heart continued to beat but there was nothing else. There was nothing else to indicate that Ella was there. “I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.” He whispered, gently.  
She should be dead.  
Rose sat on the next bed over, blinking tears out of her eyes as she stared at the body of her friend – because that's what she was, just a body.  
“Can you do anything?” John was sitting in the plastic chair next to Ella's bed and was watching the Doctor, who was muttering to himself, while he worked. They had been sitting in that room for the past hour and the Doctor had hardly said a word to anyone as he tried to figure out what had done this to Ella.  
Rose's immediate thought had been the Pods but she'd discounted it almost immediately once she realised that John had spent just as much time around them as his wife and he was fine, snap for the Doctor. None of them were showing signs... so it had to be something else. Maybe someone didn't want them to find out what the Pods were? Maybe they were getting too close? Were they being watched? Panic struck her and she slipped off the bed and reached out a hand to touch the Doctor's shoulder.   
He leapt to his feet almost immediately and turned to face her. He could see the fear in her face and he reached out to touch her cheek. “You'll be okay.” He repeated. She nodded, able to read his lips but didn't move away from him and Lewis sighed, watching them both.   
“Do you want me to take Rose home?” The Doctor turned to face him and Rose's face creased in confusion.   
The Doctor almost snickered. “She won't go even if you tried to make her.” He smiled at her baffled face, fondly.   
“I think we've proved that being in Torchwood isn't safe for her. Whatever happened to Ella is happening now to Rose and... I can't... I won't let...” Lewis' hands clenched and he looked away. “Whatever, you know best.”  
“I do.” The Doctor, while missing Lewis' sarcasm completely, smiled reassuringly at Rose before he ducked back down to examine the monitors again.   
Lewis unclenched his fingers again and sat back down on one of the plastic chairs heavily. Frowning slightly, Rose stepped around the crouching Doctor and moved over to where he sat, not far from John. She tapped on his shoulder and smiled when he looked up at her.   
“Don't worry about me.” Her voice was strange, disjointed and unsure and Lewis scowled further. “I'm okay.”  
He laughed mirthlessly. “You can't hear a thing, Rose.” He said, not particularly caring if she didn't catch the movement of his lips correctly. “How can you be okay?” He looked around at the collection of people near him and ground his teeth. “How can any one of us be okay?”   
John and the Doctor turned their heads to face him but neither of them got up. This just made him angrier.   
“How can you be so calm?” He was on his feet again and he pointed a finger at the blonde woman in the bed. If you took away the tubes and wires, you would think she simply slept because there was only peace in her face, no pain... “Ella is dying and now Rose is sick too! How can any of you be so calm?”   
John didn't answer and, for a while, neither did the Doctor but eventually he stood up again and turned fully to Lewis. “You see that girl?” He pointed at Rose, who was standing, looking between the men, a lost expression on her face. Lewis glanced at Rose, almost guiltily. “She is the one who has lost her hearing, this is happening to her... and you don't see her going into hysterics, do you?”   
“But we're doing nothing.”  
“I'm doing everything I can,” the Doctor turned to face the monitors again so Rose couldn't read his lips, “and I am doing my very best to stay calm for her. Because if I break down and let her see how scared I am... then she will know that I have no idea how to help her or Ella.”   
“Then what use are you?”   
The Doctor clenched his fists. He had a point. What use was he? The real Doctor wouldn't hesitate and would know what to do, simply because that bastard had everything. He had the T.A.R.D.I.S. He had the psychic paper. He had the sonic screwdriver. And what did this Doctor have? A pair of glasses he had pinched when the Doctor wasn't looking. If only he had his sonic screwdriver working, then maybe he could do something... figure out what was wrong.  
With a jolt he realised something, something that finally made him feel that separation, which had been creeping up on him for the last few days, in full force. He resented the Doctor. He resented himself.  
How peculiar.  
Shaking his head, he glanced over to Ella before his eyes flicked back to the bleeping monitors. It was the first time he had seen anything like this... and without more information to go on... he was less than useless. He was... just a human. A human with a head stuffed full of Time Lord gibberish that was as much help as a chocolate teapot.  
He slowly turned around and looked Lewis dead in the face. John had obviously gotten bored of the conversation and had returned to looking over Ella, holding her hand. “All I know” the Doctor began, “is that I will stop at nothing to make sure Rose is okay. There is nothing that can stop me making sure she is okay.”  
Lewis snorted. “You sound like you're in love with her.”  
“Is that a problem?”  
He stared for a heartbeat, staring at the Doctor before, finally, he shrugged. “The list of all the meds that I've been giving to Ella are on that sheet on the table.” He said, grabbing his coat. “None of them have made the slightest bit of difference but maybe they will on Rose... after all, we've caught it earlier this time.”  
“Caught it earlier? You didn't notice Ella went deaf?” The Doctor's eyes were wide.  
Lewis shrugged. “She never told us. We found out when her sight went.”  
“Her sight.” The Doctor thought for a moment and Lewis stopped near the door, watching him think. “Sound and sight... two of her senses...” He looked up at Rose who was looking over at Lewis in concern. He stepped closer to her and touched her arm and she jumped slightly at the touch. “Rose, look at me, this is important.”   
“What's the matter?” Lewis took a step closer and even John looked up in interest.  
Rose looked alarmed. “Did you notice any changes in taste or smell or touch?” He asked her slowly and she watched his lips form the words. “Over the last few days...” She thought for a second and slowly nodded.  
“Nothing tasted of anything.” She said, haltingly. “The kitchen stopped smelling bad when mum was cooking.”  
The Doctor stared at her for a moment, thinking fast.  
“Doctor?” Lewis placed down his coat.  
“... oh.. OH! Of course! Her senses are failing!” John, Lewis and Rose looked at one another in confusion. “Five senses, right? Sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch. All of these things that are the basis of being human, it's how we all feel the world around us, live... but take them away and what are we left with?” He pointed at Ella. “The complete inability to do anything. She can't feel so she's unable to move, she can't see or hear the world around her and the smaller senses... well they barely made a dent but it was there. Her senses disappeared one by one and now it's happening to Rose.” John and Lewis turned their heads to look at the girl. “Her sense of smell, taste and hearing have all gone... leaving sight and touch... the next two to disappear.”   
“Why?” She asked and the Doctor was amazed that she could keep up with his rant.  
“I don't know.”  
“Very helpful.” Lewis snapped, once again reaching for his coat.   
He was getting sick of Lewis' antagonism. “There isn't much in the universe that has the ability to take the senses... a couple of poisons, very few species... We're closer to finding out what is wrong than we were five minutes ago.”   
“...The Wire took my face.” Rose said softly in that strange new way of hers. The Doctor stared and then smiled kindly. He reached out and touched her cheek.   
“This is different. No one is taking anything else from you. I won't let them.” She shivered against his touch and leaned into his hand, closing her eyes and reaching up to touch his skin.   
“Thank you.” She murmured.   
Lewis rolled his eyes and elbowed the door open without so much as a goodbye.   
“He'll be back soon.” John murmured. “He finds it difficult to deal with people he cares about being sick. You should have seen him when Ella...” He sighed and gripped her hand.  
The Doctor sat Rose back down on the bed next to Ella's and approached the man. He sat down next to him, looking at the woman.  
“We had her in a different place to begin with... when she first collapsed.” He said, quietly. “My brother had an empty house... one that he usually rents out... Ella fell ill just after the tenants moved out so it was perfect really. We would have stayed there but Lewis was worried about the dust so I asked if we could use this lab.”  
“Dust?”  
John laughed mirthlessly. “He thought the dust would aggravate her condition... Completely unfounded mind because nothing has changed since she collapsed last week... she hasn't got worse and she hasn't got better.”   
The silence pressed on them both after that for a little while and the Doctor looked over at the other man.  
“She didn't tell you?” He asked. The question had been burning in his head for the last few minutes and he knew he just had to ask, even if it dragged up bad feeling for John. The Doctor was right there with him with bad feeling.  
John shrugged. “Ella has always been private. Even after we married, she barely told me anything about... well... anything. She's also extraordinarily stubborn and is always so determined to do things for herself, by herself, no matter how much stress or exhaustion it means... so she loses her hearing, why does she have to tell me?”  
“But you're her husband,” the Doctor frowned. The difference between Ella and John's marriage and Jackie and Pete's could not be more obvious – There are people who exist like this... They don't rely on one another, they don't share their life with one another... they allowed the other person to live in close proximity. He glanced over at Rose, his forehead creased a little. Is that what was waiting for them? Or would they be like Jackie and Pete? Maybe, just maybe, they would be something completely different... they weren't exactly a conventional couple after all.  
He was actually thinking about marriage. He was getting domesticated.   
“So? She didn't tell me she found out she couldn't have children until I saw her researching IVF.” At the Doctor's expression, John's face cracked into a gentle, if half-hearted, smile. “We love each other Doctor. We just show it differently to how other couples might. We respect each other's privacy and support each other when we need it. Give and take... we're happy.”   
“I'll find out... I'll try to help your wife, John.”   
Smiling, John stood up and made his way to the water dispenser nearby. “You're doing it for Rose, Doctor.” He picked up a cup and motioned to the girl with it. “Whatever is wrong with Ella, Rose has been infected... and that means that Rose is your first priority. Ella's just lucky you came along. Don't insult my intelligence by pretending otherwise.”  
“But I'll help her too.”  
“I know you'll try. But it will be for Rose.” John nodded. He looked so tired. “Let me worry about my wife.”

“I promised Jackie... that I'd keep you safe.” The Doctor sighed and played with the slice of pizza he had in front of him. Rose was chewing out of obligation to her stomach more than anything and watching the Doctor speak with a dissatisfied grimace on her face.   
“I got myself into trouble this time.” She told him. “Not your fault.”  
He looked at her. “But it's still my responsibility to keep you safe.”  
“Why?”  
He blinked as Rose smiled a little. He guessed that it was lucky that she could lip-read so well and dimly wondered why she had a cause to learn and how she managed to learn... a young woman with her background probably didn't have much cause to... but it didn't matter... he was glad for it. He also dimly wondered how or even if he should answer her slightly flirtatious question. It was serious, she was in danger and for the moment, there was nothing he could do to help her. He had to wait and watch her get sicker until the desperately sought-out eureka moment occurred or he managed to get his sonic screwdriver finished. He wasn't going to tell her that...   
He glanced over to where Lewis and John were sat, picking over their own shared pizza nearby Ella's bed. Lewis had come back about fifteen minutes before with an apologetic expression and two pizzas, one of which he had thrown at Rose and Doctor, making the former leap about a foot in the air from her sitting position on the bed when it landed on her.   
“Oh you know... because of us...” He wasn't looking at her. He seemed very interested in a piece of pineapple that was making a desperate bid for freedom.   
She grinned. “And what do you call... us?” The Doctor loved seeing her smiles.  
He didn't know. There was no question... he was with Rose for life now. She was... there was nothing he could say that could make it easier to understand. She was just Rose. The girl who fought through dimensions to find him again. The girl that would have said goodbye to her mother forever to stay with him. She was his. And that was all there was to it.   
The Doctor just smiled and reached out to touch that rebellious but lovely lock of hair that started to swing into her eyes. “Let's just concentrate on getting you better for now.” He said softly.   
They were silent for a while, picking at the Hawaiian pizza that Lewis had brought them, rather than eating before Rose after having a thoughtful look on her face for the last few minutes, raised an excellent question.   
“Are we going to stay here?”   
The Doctor thought for a moment. “It's probably best. If I took you home without your hearing... your mother may just eat me.”   
“I can hardly call her though. She'll be worried.” She flipped her phone open and looked at the menu as if blaming that for her sudden deafness. She perked up. “I could text her. I'll tell her I have to work overnight. I've done it before.” And she hunched forward, tapping on the number pad quickly, while Doctor looked over at the brothers. They were sitting beside one another, chatting in low tones. The scientist and the doctor. If the two black rucksacks shoved in the top right hand corner of the room were anything to go by, the boys had been staying in this lab while Ella had been sick.  
A lab created to look like a hospital ward. For the first time, well... properly... the Doctor checked his surroundings. It was a secret lab, a lab that only a few people had access to so they could... what? Examine people? Examine alien species? The Doctor frowned. No, that wasn't right.  
Perhaps the lab was already fulfilling its use? Caring for people who couldn't be looked after by those working in a hospital? Illnesses and maladies of an unusual nature... not known by common people...  
Rose jumped a little as the phone in her hand buzzed, a quick reply to the text she had not long sent and she lifted the phone up in panic, showing the Doctor the caller I.D. The Doctor winced and took the phone, giving Rose a disgruntled look.  
“ _Use protection_!” Jackie exclaimed before the Doctor was even able to open his mouth.   
He grinned “Why, hello Jackie.”  
There was a moment of silence. “ _Where's Rose?_ ” She sounded almost accusatory.   
“Toilet.”   
“ _Too much information, couldn't you just have said she was somewhere else_?”   
“Would you have accepted that?”  
There was a heartbeat of silence. “ _No. I suppose not_.”   
The Doctor looked over to Rose for help but she just smiled sweetly and lay back against the pillows, the very image of I-don't-care. He narrowed his eyes at her playfully and she giggled.   
“ _Are you going to be home in the morning then_?” Jackie asked, obviously annoyed that the Doctor wasn't holding up his end of the conversation. “ _Pete wants to make a full english... you know he's completely stole the kitchen from me, anyone would think he didn't like my cookin'_ ”  
He ignored the fact that she was obviously fishing for compliments. “Probably not... Rose has got a lot of work to do... It's just sort of... been piled on her.” When Jackie made a noise like she wanted to interject, the Doctor cut across her. “Don't worry... I'll make sure she eats and sleeps.”   
“ _You do that_.” She grumbled. “ _Oh and Doctor_?”  
“Yes?”  
“Don't get my daughter pregnant.”  
He didn't really know what to say to that.


	10. Not Like This

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When things get worse, the Doctor gets desperate. He needs to figure things out soon...  
> Especially when he wakes up to find something he really did not want to come to pass.

The Doctor woke to silence. The ward was bright to the point of glowing, as the thin blinds didn't do much to stop the just-risen sun's rays from streaming though, and everything in the vicinity smelled of Rose. It was peaceful and exactly what the Doctor always wanted. He wanted to wake up to her scent... He opened his eyes and sadly smiled down at her face.  
She was still asleep, her hand curled around the corner of the pillow that they had started off sharing, but when she had fallen asleep, the Doctor seized another from the next bed over to give her as much space as possible, even if it were only a little more room on the bed that was already cramped with the two of them, huddled together as they were. She wanted him close and he understood; she had just lost her hearing; she was scared. He wasn't going to just leave her when she needed him the most.  
Except... he had already done that, hadn't he? He had left her in a parallel world that wasn't hers. It felt like so long ago now... but the guilt and the sadness hadn't really abated. He knew he didn't really deserve her.  
He carefully sat up with that thought, careful not to disturb the sleeping girl and sighed, running his hand through his hair.   
And he figured out what was wrong.  
He had awoken to silence.  
Instantly he was out of bed and was stumbling over to the inactive machines that still surrounded Ella. There was nothing – no beeping, no whirring, no printing out of brain function – there was nothing left but a slight scent of... what was that? The Doctor stood and touched the plastic side to one of the monitors, sniffing slightly.  
“No.” He whispered. He leaned forward and pressed his tongue against the white surface. He winced and drew back, looking down at Ella. “...You have to be joking.” He whispered to himself. Slowly he leant forward a little and pressed two fingers to the side of her throat.  
“Doctor?”   
He whirled around to the owner of the voice. John was sitting up in his bed, ruffling his hair as he winced up at the rays of sunlight that were streaming through the gap in the blinds. His brother was also stirring, blinking and rubbing his eyes with his knuckles.   
“What are you doing?” He finally noticed where the Doctor was standing. “H... h-how's Ella?”  
The Doctor looked down at the woman in question. It was only a matter of time.   
He expected it: that sudden, terrified gasp and when it came the older brother leapt from his bed and was at the side of Ella's bed before the Doctor could even blink.  
“What...” He turned to the unit beside him and desperately set upon it, turning dials, pressing buttons and even going as far as to hit the screen with the back of his hand when it didn't respond. He turned back to Ella and pressed his fingers against her throat like the Doctor had only a moment before.  
“No...” His word came out like a breathless scream. He ignored the Doctor placing a hand on his shoulder and instead sank to his knees, reaching forward to press his palm against the cold back of Ella's hand. There was no answering squeeze, no murmur of understanding from her lips, no flicker of life in her closed eyelids.   
“This is a dream, this is a dream, this is a dream.” He moaned as Lewis swung himself out of his bed, frowning. “This is a dream, this is a dream. Wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up, WAKE UP. WAKE UP. WAKE UP. WAKE. UP. WAKE. UP!” The Doctor didn't know if he was screaming at Ella or himself.   
“I'm sorry...” The Doctor whispered, staring at the floor. Lewis had joined the Doctor and simply stared at the body of the woman who had been like a sister through most of his life.  
“Ella...” He whispered, his heart in his eyes. He bit down on his lip as his brother continued to weep and scream. He swallowed hard and turned to the Doctor as John's screams dwindled into moans and sobs. “What... what happened to her?”  
“I'll tell you what happened.” John was shaking and any word he uttered felt hoarse to anyone who heard him. He turned his head suddenly and pointed an accusing finger at the Doctor, the other still clamped around Ella's. “He did something!”   
“What?!” The Doctor gasped.  
John stumbled to his feet. “You did something, didn't you!? I saw you! You were by her... you turned the unit off... you took her away!”  
Lewis placed a placating hand upon his brother's chest, even as a tear rolled down his cheek. “No, John... You... you don't know what you're saying.”  
John pushed Lewis' hand away. “Shut up!” He seethed. “Don't you patronise me! Look at him! What do we know about him other than the fact that he's a friend of Rose, eh? How do we know that he wasn't the one who poisoned Ella and Rose in the first place?! We know nothing about him!”  
“I didn't do anything.” the Doctor raised both hands and took a careful step back from John's fire lest it burn him.  
“YOU WERE STANDING THERE! WHY WERE YOU STANDING THERE?!”  
The Doctor spoke in a calm, clear voice. “I woke up and realised her heart monitor had stopped. I was just trying to help her, John.”  
He wasn't buying it. “You're lying.”   
“John,” Lewis warned gently, holding his brother's shoulder, ducking just in time when John's fist shot past him, straight to place his face had been only a second ago. “I'm not your enemy, John!” When John ignored him and tried to move forward toward the Doctor, Lewis was once again in his way.   
“Just let me explain.” The Doctor still had both hands raised, watching the grief-driven fight to get to him.  
John wasn't paying attention. He wasn't listening to anything the Doctor told him. “No! You did this!”  
“I didn't!”  
“John!”  
“ADMIT IT!”  
“I didn't do anything!”  
“TELL ME! YOU DID IT DIDN'T YOU!?”  
“LET ME EXPLAIN!”   
Lewis didn't let go of his brother, who was still struggling to get to the Doctor. “NO! You...You did something! You did something to my Ella... you hurt... you made sure she didn't...” And the man broke down into violent sobs, clinging onto his brother as he choked out his pain. His knuckles were white as he pushed his brother away at the same time as pulling him closer, torn between his pain and his anger. “She's gone. She's gone... gone gone...”  
Lewis stared at the Doctor. “What... the hell... happened?!”  
“The life support unit shorted out.” The Doctor still didn't lower his hands. “The whole thing simply reeks of electrical energy... some sort of discharge overloaded the system... and it came from Ella.” He pointed at the woman, who once again looked like she could only be sleeping. “She caused the machine to short when she-”  
“NO!” John screamed. “Don't you say it! Don't you dare!”  
The man flung himself away from his brother and stumbled toward the Doctor. His feet became surer and the fire flooded through him in a physical wave and he instantly charged forward, his arms outstretched and he seized the collar of the Doctor's blazer, pulling him so close, he could smell his acrid breath – proof that the man had been staying here for as long as Ella had been, not caring about something as small as brushing his teeth. “It's your fault she's gone! You said you would try to help her.” He sobbed. He increased his grip and shook the man, tears streaming down his face. “You just... let her die.”   
“John!” Lewis seized his brother's shirt and tried to pull him off the Doctor, but the older man growled and threw his brother off him, pushing the Doctor back against the nearest wall. His fist swung around and caught the Doctor on the chin, aim off but enough power to make him crack his head against the cold wall behind him. Lights flashed in front of his vision as Lewis, once again, clung to his brother and pulled him away with all his might.  
“YOU BASTARD!” John screamed as his pressure on the Doctor was released. “YOU LET HER DIE!”   
The Doctor didn't take a step. He stood at the wall with his wide eyes staring at the man who had just attacked him. Lewis had managed to floor his brother and was sitting with the trembling man in his arms. His eyes were on the Doctor who was now examining the blood that decorated his fingertips, brushed from the back of his head.   
“Do you want me to take a look at that?” He offered. The Doctor shook his head and shoved his hands into his pockets.   
“Look after him.” He jerked his chin toward John as he moved back to the unit. His head stung and he winced, resisting the urge to prod and poke it and instead began examining the monitors again. It was the strangest thing... the whole thing shorted out when she died... she released energy that frazzled anything electrical in a range of...? hmm... He dashed back toward the inactive unit near the bed that John had been resting in and gave it a cautionary sniff. No. He looked back at the bed and frowned... a range of three feet call it? How could a human being do that? What... what was going on?!  
“...D...Doctor?” Instantly, all worry about pain or electrical discharge fled as the Doctor turned to face the woman who was now sitting up in bed. He almost smiled at her bed-head; she looked adorable.   
She looked around. “Can someone turn the lights on?”   
With that one sentence, the Doctor's stomach dropped leaving nothing but an icy absence in its wake. He darted forward and reached out to brush his fingertips against her arm, letting her know that he was here, that she wasn't alone. She jumped slightly and moved her head down to where she felt his fingers.  
“Doctor?” Her head lifted and she blinked. Once. Twice. “Doctor? Doctor?! Doctor?! No! No, no, no, no!!” Her hands flung up to her face and she desperately rubbed her eyes. “No.” Her arms flung out and touched his arm, she squeezed his skin, frowning and she moaned, desperately. Suddenly, Rose pushed herself backwards off the bed and she fell, her back slamming hard against the hard floor. She gasped and pulled herself back up, feeling around as she moved backwards moaning. Everything that touched her skin made her jump and scream, not knowing it was there, not knowing what it was, not knowing anything because she just couldn't see... The Doctor couldn't do anything as he watched the girl scream, terror in her sightless eyes. He couldn't move.   
“DOCTOR!” Lewis called. The Doctor snapped out of his daze and he moved forward to where she sat, rubbing her eyes and screaming. She felt his hands on her arms and screamed. He closed his eyes and moved his arms so they encircled her and despite the screaming that did not abate, he held her, hard, letting his warmth spread from him and into her. She was shaking, and it shook him to the core. She was crying and he wanted to cry too. She was terrified but how he felt was something beyond fear.  
 _Not like this._ He couldn't do this. _Not like this._ He wasn't going to lose her again. _Not like this._  
 _Not like this. Not. Like. This._   
“Not like this.” He whispered as the girl in his arms slowly stopped screaming. Her arms shifted and gripped onto his blazer as her broken voice slowly drifted down into harsh, terrified sobs.   
The Doctor and Lewis sat there on the ground for what felt like hours, each holding a person that had gone through too much and was about to go through so much more pain before it got better.  
It was ridiculous to believe that a few simple days ago... everything had been... good.

Lewis and John had gone and the Doctor was sitting alone. No, he scolded himself, not alone. Rose lay in the bed in front of him, very, very still. She was probably, hopefully, sleeping... her only sense left being the one to feel. She couldn't see him sitting beside her like a grieving husband, she couldn't hear his agonised breathing... all she could do was lie there and feel his hand on hers. But he wasn't touching her. He wanted her to rest...  
Soon, she would lose that ability too. She wouldn't know he was there... she would be terrified.  
Rose. Why was she how she is? He wondered as he looked down at her. Her mother raised her right, she had no other choice, with Pete gone, it was only her and her tiny daughter... he had seen, on the day Pete died, how tiny Rose had been... and Jackie had done a good job.  
Maybe he should tell her that?  
And there was everything else: She had made him a better man once... the rage bubbled and burned inside of him but once, Rose had taken that away... not completely, but she had made him a better man. He wanted to be a better man so she would really, truly love him the way she loved him. His fists clenched.   
It wasn't fair.   
He had Rose for less than two weeks and she was already dying of something he just couldn't fix. It was not fair.  
Memories stirred and he sighed.   
“Your heart grows cold, the north wind blows and carries down the distant... Rose,” the Doctor ran his hands through his hair. “They all knew... everyone who met me... they knew about you... and that means something... You... you can't leave me now.” He reached forward and grasped her cold hand and he felt her fingers flex under his, curling to capture him in a vice-like grip that made his heart rise to his throat so he felt he was choking. “You can't leave me now.” She opened her eyes and sighed.  
“Doctor.” She murmured.  
“I'm here,” he murmured, leaning forward in the vain hope that she would be able to hear him if he were closer. “I'm always here.”  
And it was true. For two days, he stayed by her side. He didn't even move when they came to take Ella's body away. He didn't eat and barely slept, he just kept a constant vigil, watching the girl he cared for as she slowly slipped closer to somewhere he could never follow.  
He only realised, that Friday morning, that he was not the only one who cared about Rose.  
He was sitting at Rose's bed, looking down at the display of her phone and all the missed calls from Jackie that flashed up in a scary double-digit number. The phone was on silent because he just did not have a way to tell her that he had failed... that Rose wasn't going to be coming home this time...  
Unexpectedly, the door to the lab hissed open and the Doctor almost jumped, turning to look at the visitor.  
“I'm in love with her.” Lewis stated simply, standing in the doorway. The Doctor stared at him, his face expressionless as the taller man strolled into the ward. “You... you just come out of nowhere and you sweep her off her feet... she looks at you with an expression I have never seen from her and... I don't know why.” His eyes narrowed. “Who are you?”   
The Doctor sighed. “That's quite a good question... sometimes... I think I'm not quite so sure anymore.”   
Lewis grimaced. “That's a lame excuse for an answer if I ever heard one.” He pulled a chair from nearby Ella's vacant bed and threw himself into it, reaching into his rucksack and pulling two bottles of water, one of which he offered to the Doctor.   
He took it gratefully.  
So Lewis was in love with Rose? He guessed he should feel jealous... but there was nothing. Nothing reared its ugly head from within his chest, he didn't feel angry that Lewis had just admitted his feelings and he didn't feel scared that she was just going to run off with him instead.  
He pitied him.   
“Are you okay?”  
The Doctor sipped some of the water and shrugged. “I feel useless. All I keep thinking... is that I am running out of time to fix her... How long... how long was Ella like... like this before she died?”  
Lewis sighed. “A week or so... Look, I'm sorry... for everything I said. I know you're trying... I just...” He looked over at Rose. “She went away for a long time, she jumped to a whole different department to find some man and when John said that she was looking after the Pods while he looked after Ella... I wondered if she had found that man she was looking for...”  
“Hang on,” said the Doctor, frowning at Lewis. “Repeat that last bit.”   
“I wondered if–” Lewis started.  
“No, no, no. The bit before that.”   
Before Lewis could open his mouth, the door to the lab hissed open. They both turned to look as John slowly made his way into the lab, looking anywhere but at Ella's empty bed. He looked awful.  
“John.” Lewis was on his feet. “Are you... what the hell are you doing here? You should be at home.”  
He gave his brother a look. “At home... which is plastered with pictures of my dead wife? Yeah, sure... that's a brilliant idea.” His sarcasm made Lewis frown.  
“But here at work? You could at least go to mum's.”   
Pinching his nose, John shook his head. “All she wants to talk about is Ella.” He lowered his hand and directed his gaze to the Doctor. “I'm here to help.”  
The Doctor blinked. “Pardon?”  
“Whatever hurt Ella... It's... it's the same thing that is hurting Rose... and I want to make sure that what hurt her is brought to justice.” He looked down at the floor for a minute before looking back to the Doctor. “I'm sorry... for accusing you. I look at you now... and it's like looking in the mirror about a week ago. You'd never hurt Rose...”  
No, I wouldn't. The Doctor thought it, but kept his mouth shut and instead just turned back to Lewis.   
“What were you saying?”  
“What?”  
John joined them by Rose's bed, staring down at her in silence.   
"You were saying how Ella was taking care of the Pods.." The Doctor found his mind racing forward, ticking boxes, crossing out ideas as he drifted into the realm of epiphany...  
"Yeah, she was..."  
John blinked. "How could we have missed that?"  
“We didn't miss it! That's why! We've already thought of it. It can't be the Pods.”  
“Well can you think of anything else they have in common?!”   
“Will you both just shut up for one bleeding second?!” The brothers stopped their bickering stared at the Doctor, who was standing nearest the door leading to the corridor and into the Torchwood building proper. His eyes were wide. “Lewis is right... The only thing they have in common is that they both worked in the lab. Ella got sick first and then Rose took over the experiments... she was looking over the... Pods.... she... Oh you... idiot! ” Without another word he turned and exited the room at speed, running down the corridor and bypassing the lift completely, heading straight for the stairs while the brothers trailed along behind him, confused.  
He charged down the stairs like an unstoppable force, jumping the last few every time he neared the bottom. “Ella was already sick... when I arrived... but...” He panted to the barely following brothers as he ran. Thud. “... only just... and... Lewis said... it happened...” thud. “Slowly... gradually.... We didn't... know... Rose... didn't...” thud. “...know...”  
He flung open the door on the correct level and once again pelted down the corridor. He stopped at an intersection and looked both ways before charging off again, remembering the route that Rose had taken him before. This is the corridor on which she smiled that way at him... on this corridor she touched her hair shyly when she noticed him staring at her... He had ached to kiss her here... Needing to touch her skin again.  
Lab Six. He had found it. The door hissed open and he stumbled to a stop inside, staring at the remaining Pod. It all seemed so simple.  
“Where's the other Pod?!” He demanded turning to the brothers who had just charged in, a few seconds after himself.  
“You... could have... sl-slowed down...” Lewis was bent almost double, holding onto John who was staring at the Pod in confusion.  
“The other Pod... there was another one left! Where has it gone?”  
Lewis and John stared.  
“How... How are we supposed... to know? We... we haven't... been... been in the... lab... for... for days...” John gasped.  
The Doctor nodded, of course. “That settles it.”  
“I know... what you're thinking... Doctor. But... if the Pods have been... affecting the girls... why... why haven't...” He took a deep breath. “Why aren't... we sick?”   
The Doctor turned again and stared at the remaining Pod and the two empty incubators, flicking between them all with his wide eyes. He turned once more and stared at the two men. “What?”  
“The... girls, how have they been infected? I've been with the Pods as much as Ella and Rose and I... I'm fine. That... that's why it couldn't be the Pods... You... you're grasping at straws.” He stood up and winced, clutching his side.   
“Oh.” The Doctor sounded almost disappointed. He thought for a moment. “Oh?... No, wait... Oh!... OH! Hang on... OH! OH! YOU... you... OH! Females!” When both men sent identical confused looks to the Doctor, he skipped over to the dissected Pod in the glass container and pointed at it. “On their planet, I saw green and pink Pods. Green and pink. Male and female. Green Pods fall to earth in... a military camp – all men – no effect but put the Pods in the vicinity of two women and they get sick the longer they... YES! The Pods are making them sick! Males effect females. Females effect males!” He glared at the dead Pod. “They begin dead. They steal the life force from a host and they can move, change... mate.”   
“What are you talking about?”  
The Doctor was silent for a moment before he swore, turning around and slamming his hand against an innocent tabletop. “ARGH! NO! STUPID! Stupid, cloggy human brain... ow...” Shaking his hand, he turned back to the two men, glaring at them with an intensity that scared them. “This wasn't just an accident, the Pods were sent here on purpose. Three male Pods to steal the life from human females and mate to create more Pods... that take the life of more humans, change, mate, more Pods, take the life of humans, change, mate, the cycle goes on, on and on and on and on and on and on an on... never stopping until the whole human race is dead. This is not an accident. This is an invasion.”  
“An invasion...”   
The Doctor nodded. “Whoever sent these... these Pods... these things. They intend to wipe out humanity...” He shook his head in disgust. “They are using a species as a weapon!”   
“What do we do for Rose?”   
The Doctor grinned. “We know what's making her sick now. All we have to do is find it.”   
“But we're running out of time.”  
He was well aware of that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You've probably guessed that I changed the pattern of the titles on purpose as we're no longer going by Rose's POV.


	11. The Important Bit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where is the Pod now?  
> What happened to it?  
> How can the Doctor find the two Pods without losing Rose?  
> Is it even possible?

He sat at the bar, hand caressing a small glass of whiskey, just the scent of which was beginning to make him feel just a touch dizzy. It was late and the only straggles that were left were the lonely and broken souls, the dregs and shipwrecks of a daily storm, those that life forgot.  
It was all new to him, sitting at the bar of a grimy pub while nursing a drink that we was never going to finish, but it felt oddly right. Appropriate even.  
"Another," the woman on the stool next to him tapped drunkenly on the bar. Her unnatural red hair was matted, black eyeliner and mascara run down her cheeks in unlovely lines and a bleeding lip where someone had torn out one of two lip piercings. Her knuckles were scraped and she was shaking.  
"You still 'aven't paid for the last three miss." The balding landlord grumbled. "And I don't tend to allow tabs."  
He normally would have ignored her but there was something about him that urged him forward, a whispering in his mind, an empathetic heart he was not used to. She needed a drink... He corrected himself. She needed more drink.  
"I'll get this." The man sighed and peeled a twenty from the thick wad he had curled in his pocket. "And I'll pay her outstanding debt."  
The landlord shrugged, took the money, gave change and filled another glass with whatever the girl was drinking. He pushed it toward her and then shuffled off to serve another drunken woman at the end of the bar. The girl was now staring at him. Her eyes narrowed.  
"Do I know you?" She asked, slowly.  
"Prob'ly not." He finally lifted the drink to his lips and took a sip. It burned down his throat but not in a way that was unpleasant. He gasped and grinned at the woman. "I noticed that you didn't exactly turn down my charity."  
She snorted. "Charity. Puh." She downed her drink. "You're just trying to get in my pants." The glass slammed against the bar, now empty.  
Before she could even yell for the landlord, he beat her to it. He pointed to her glass. "Another!"  
She gaped at him. "You... I'm not going to jump into bed with you just because you bought me two drinks."  
"Five." He corrected.  
"Wha?"  
He scratched the side of his nose. "Five drinks. I also paid for the last three you had before I sat down, remember?" The landlord refilled the glass, took the offered money and slouched off, grumbling to himself about wishing he had taken his mother's advice and been a doctor instead. "So... what happened?"  
The girl stared at the drink in front of her before her eyes sliced slowly into his. "What?" She seemed unfriendly.  
He pointed. "Your lip."  
The girl shrugged and pulled the sleeve of her black top up to reveal a mottled pattern of bruises in varying stages of healing across her forearm. She shrugged at his shocked expression. "Boyfriend's an asshole." She said.  
"Your... boyfriend did that?"  
She shrugged again. "He drinks a lot and decides that I'm not how I should be. I don't listen, hence the bruises."  
"And you're okay with this?"  
She snorted. "No, but why do you think I drink? I don't enjoy it here. The landlord's a wanker, the place smells like piss and I can't sit here for two minutes without some creep thinking he can get into my pants. But it's cheap and I can drink in relative peace."  
The man sighed, his anger rising in a way that he did not like at all, in a way he was not used to, and clenched his fist before he resolutely slipped it off the bar and onto his lap, hiding his anger from the girl. No one should be treated like that.  
"What's your name?" He asked suddenly.  
She blinked and then grinned. "Nix. Short for Nicola but I haven't been called that since I was six."  
"It's a good name."  
She smiled and they both lapsed into silence, sipping their drinks as they thought about what had been said and left unsaid. He wasn't used to the bluntness that was spilling from this girl, the honesty and the bleak way she accepted her lot in life. He had come to believe that everyone was fighting for something better, he had learned that there was always something better... but she didn't believe that. She felt alone and had accepted that she would always be alone.  
A lonely man swung from his barstool and stomped over to the jukebox. When it didn't work, even when he slowly, drunkenly, put every loose coin he had in his grimy pocket into it, he kicked it. It flickered once and died.  
"Oi!" The barman yelled. "What are you doin'?! Those things aren't cheap you know!?"  
"Shut up, dick." The drunken man said. He was wearing dull blue jeans that were covered in greasy oil stains and a green overcoat that hung in tatters around his knees. He gave the jukebox another sound kick. The lights flickered once and then settled back into inactivity.  
"I'm warning you."  
There was no prelude. Suddenly, the man was screaming, throwing empty pint glasses at the man behind the bar. Screaming obscenities until he was blue in the face, he stared throwing bottles and ashtrays, anything he could get his hands on and the man and girl slipped from their stools and hid from the showers of glass. The screaming of the drunk took drowned out any other sound and most of the other patrons were hiding under tables, peering round the cigarette machines and fruit machines in fear.  
The landlord slowly stood up, his face set behind a thin sheen of blood that was spilling from a shallow cut on his forehead, and he was holding a shotgun in a way that told everyone in the bar that he knew how to use it. He pumped once and aimed it at the no-longer screaming man.  
"I said." He whispered, evenly. "I'm warning you. That was a warning... This, here... this is a threat." The man blinked, once, twice and with a growl that caused the hairs to rise on Nix' arms, he fled.  
The landlord slowly lowered his gun and grinned sheepishly at the nervous patrons that were beginning to peer out from their hiding places. "I don't suppose, if you're ever asked about what happened here, you could omit the fact that I had a shotgun?"  
"What shotgun?" Nix said, a little breathlessly. She looked up at the man sitting next to her and giggled, reaching up to push her hair out of her eyes.  
She had a very pretty smile.  


He was storming off again and it was all the brothers could do to keep up with him.  
"Doctor, what did you mean?" Lewis asked as he came abreast with him. They were heading upstairs to the ward again, mainly because the Doctor felt like he had been away from Rose for far too long. "When you said that... it's an invasion?"  
"The Pods are lifeless. The only way they can do anything is if someone lands on their planet." He shook his head. "I should have remembered but my head is so full of... stuff that I can't think straight... I landed on their planet once before and I left because something was happening to me... anyway, like I said, lifeless. They can't do anything and so, how did they get here? Someone sent them."  
"What if someone landed there then? You said that the Pods steal life, so maybe they came after stealing life from whoever landed there." The Doctor looked over at Lewis. He was starting to like him.  
He shook his head. "They'd be in a different shape." He stopped and his eyes grew wide. "Oh I can be so stupid. A genius but really, really stupid."  
"Doctor?"  
"It doesn't matter." He said, with a thoughtful frown on his face. "I'd love to show off a bit but I don't really have time. All I know is that the Pods were sent here, as seeds planted to slowly destroy the human race. It would take hundreds and hundreds of years but it would work. Just before you lot take your first tentative steps out there in that big glittering void... you wouldn't even see it..."  
Lewis and John stood and stared at the stranger that stood in front of them. He seemed to know so much, had seen so much and yet here he was standing in the middle of the corridor with a faraway look on his face like a schoolboy. His arms were at his side and his face was slightly tilted upwards to look at the ceiling but both brothers had the impression that he saw so much more than that...  
He was something else.  
And he was off again without a word, faster this time, hurrying to get to the ward.  
She had been alone for too long.

She hadn't changed. The Doctor sat on a chair with his legs propped up on a second one that he had pulled forward to rest them on. He was frowning as he stared at the multitude of monitors that beeped around the prone body of Rose like it was their fault she were like this.  
She had lost her sense of feeling. Nothing the Doctor did could make her react to him. She didn't move, she didn't speak. All she did was lie there and breathe, each and every breath a grain of sand in an hourglass, counting down the time until the Pod stole everything that was her and made her go away.  
And he was just sitting there.  
Lewis and John had gone down to the cafeteria earlier to get sandwiches and drinks and were probably on their way back up now but the Doctor didn't really care what they were doing. The only thing he cared about was getting Rose back on her feet.  
Bzzt. The Doctor glanced to Rose's phone which was lying on a small table at the foot of her bed and he sighed, reaching up to pick it up.  
Jackie. Again.  
On some sort of insane impulse, the Doctor answered it.  
" _Okay, Doctor, what the hell have you done with my daughter? I let you into my home, I feed you, buy you clothes and how do you thank me? By running off to the hills with my little girl, that's how! And she hasn't been answering her phone! What am I supposed to think?! Oh you wait until I get hold of you, you blighter, you'll be running to the flaming sun to get away from me!"_  
"Hello Jackie."  
 _"Where are you? Do you know how long it's been since I've heard anything from you two?"_  
"We're still at work." It wasn't exactly a lie.  
He heard her sigh. " _Yeah, right and I'm the Prime Minister."_  
"How was the election?"  
" _Don't get smart with me!_ " The Doctor stood up, instantly regretting antagonising her. He was feeling useless, which was starting to become somewhat of a trend and had begun lashing out, the anger bubbling beneath the surface. Rose would've hit him on the arm with the back of her hand, amused but slightly annoyed. He shouldn't toy with Jackie, she was worried.  
He mooched over to the window and rested his head on the glass. "I'm sorry Jackie..."  
" _Doctor, where is my daughter?_ "  
He sighed and looked out the window, down at the people milling around below them.  
"She's sick."  
" _Sick_?"  
"Very sick."  
" _You said you'd keep her safe_."  
"I'm trying to make her better, Jackie."  
" _What is wrong with her_?"  
Now that was a question, how was he supposed to answer that?! He rolled his head so he was looking up at the overcast sky, forehead still pressed against the cool glass. "She's..." Jackie knew about this sort of stuff, she understood more than normal parents would... "She's getting her life sucked out by an alien, gradually losing her senses while it happens... she has about a week. A week for me to find the alien that's doing it to her and stop it."  
There was silence on the other end of the phone for a while, so long that the Doctor had to check a couple of times that the call was still connected. Eventually, she spoke. " _You make sure you bring her back alive Doctor. You do this for me. Don't you dare come back without her_."

John and his brother came back shortly after. They were walking in silence with food and drink in their hands and they only nodded to the Doctor when they entered, moving over to the table to divvy out the food they had bought between the three of them. Rose was now hooked up to an IV.  
None of them were talking much, there was nothing to say. Ella was dead and now Rose was on her way to follow her and however close they were to knowing how to make Rose better, it was useless without the Pod. The Pod was the key.  
And he wanted to crush it for hurting Rose.  
Slowly, slicing through the almost silence that had taken hold of the room since the Doctor finished his conversation with Jackie was... a sound that did not fit in with the constant beeping of the heart monitor. That was it, a sound... but it was coming from Rose. A strange sort of gasping that caused John and Lewis to turn and gape at her.  
"What... What is she..." John and his brother circled the bed, staring down at the girl. The Doctor stood at the window, staring down at the milling people below, going about their day to day business, not knowing anything of the man that watched them or the pain he was going through. "Ella never... Doctor... What is she doing?"  
"Tell me... John... Lewis." The Doctor turned and looked hard at the two men, careful to keep his eyes away from Rose. She was just lying there... So still... "What would you do? If you couldn't see, you didn't know where you were and you couldn't even feel yourself breathe. What would you do if you didn't know what was happening to you, if you were scared? What would you do?"  
The brothers stared at him for a moment before the younger one spoke.  
"I... I'd call for help," Lewis looked at his brother. "I'd..." his eyes widened and he looked at the Doctor who nodded slowly and approached the bed. He reached out a hand and pressed his fingers to her cheek, listening to her gasp.  
"Rose is screaming." he confirmed. He turned around and ran his hands through his hair. "And I'm doing nothing. I can't just... I can't just stand here. I need to find that bloody Pod."  
"But we don't know where it is! It could be anywhere!"  
He stopped and stared at Lewis. "Not anywhere... Rose told me, there was no security footage from the lab, static... an electrical discharge..." He hit himself in the forehead. "I should have realised then. The energy that shorted the life support system for Ella was the same that shorted out the CCTV in the lab! But the cameras in the corridor were working fine and nothing came out of the lab!"  
"Are you saying that the Pods are still there?"  
"They can't be anywhere else!" He turned for a last time and fled the room.  


It was then, on his way to Lab Six once again with John and Lewis in tow, that the Doctor met an angel.  
His stride had remained steady from the ward to the floor that housed Lab Six, but the moment he saw those whitewashed corridors, he found his feet speeding up and the brothers fell behind as he raced toward his destination.  
He had only one thought on his mind.  
Unless he could find those Pods soon, he was going to lose his Rose.  
"Doctor!"  
He frowned as his thoughts bubbled beneath the surface, his feet taking him along the corridor to where he knew Lab Six was housed. He wouldn't forget the route now, not with his memories of Rose to guide him.  
"Doctor!"  
He skidded to a stop, still frowning. Did someone call his name?  
One of the technicians from Alien Tech was bolting up the corridor behind them, his white coat flapping behind as he closed the distance between him and the Doctor, who finally turned as the tech reached him. For a second, he bent over double, catching his breath, before he straightened and thrust his closed hand toward him.  
"B...b... bit." He gasped.  
John and Lewis, who had overshot slightly when the Doctor had stopped, mooched backwards to meet them.  
"Bit?" Lewis asked as he came abreast with the Doctor. His eyebrow was arched slightly.  
The Doctor offered his hand forward and the tech opened his fist. A small round, metallic object fell into his palm.  
There was a heartbeat of silence as the Doctor and the brothers peered into his palm.  
"HAHA! YOU BEAUT-AY!" The Doctor suddenly cried, making all three men jump. He reached forward and planted a huge kiss on the cheek of the poor man standing in front of him. "This is it!" He twirled back around to show it to John and Lewis. "HA!"  
Lewis frowned and backed away in case he was going to be kissed too. John had a politely puzzled look on his face. "This... this is what?"  
"I can finish my sonic screwdriver!" He announced proudly. "HA!"  
"You can... what?"  
The manic look on the Doctor's face calmed a little as he looked down at the microscopic object in his palm, smiling because, just then, he realised that this tiny, tiny thing could very well be the thing to save Rose. "With my screwdriver... I can find out... I can find it." He nodded and grinned at the brothers. "Give me a sec!" And without another word, be bounded off again.  


Rose was lying completely still and the Doctor was crouched at the foot of her bed snapping the metallic tubing into place, which is how John and Lewis found them as they entered the ward. The Doctor had disappeared completely and they had been searching for him for the last half an hour. Lewis glared.  
"Where have you been?"  
The Doctor lifted up the sonic screwdriver and activated it. The red tip lit up and the device emitted a loud, high-pitched whirr. He leapt to his feet. "Fixin' this!" He flipped it up and caught it before he practically danced over to Rose's bedside.  
"But where have you been?"  
"Tech room. They had soldering irons." He frowned down at Rose and carefully aimed the screwdriver at her and activated it.  
John and Lewis approached him as he muttered to himself. Suddenly, the Doctor turned, facing the door. "I got it!" He gasped. He looked down at the sonic screwdriver and grinned. "HA! I've got it!"  
"Got what?!"  
"The link! The link between Rose and the Pod! I can find the Pod... or..." he turned to look at Rose. "... I can sever the link..."  
Lewis gasped. "Will that make her better?"  
The Doctor nodded. "Her senses will return. It's still draining her and without the link, they will automatically return to her... like letting go of an elastic band."  
"Then do it!"  
"Wait!" John stepped forward, holding up a hand. "What about the Pod?"  
"What about the flaming Pod? This is Rose's life we're talking about!" Lewis growled at his brother.  
John shook his head. "If we just cut the link then the Pod will be free to hurt another girl, won't it?" He looked to the Doctor. "Won't it?" The Doctor nodded.  
"So?"  
"If we find the Pod, then we can make sure nothing like this happens to anyone else. No one will be hurt like Rose or... like Ella."  
Lewis put his head in his hand. "He can cut the link!"  
"I can do both." The Doctor shrugged. "Find the Pod, sever the connection. You humans never think do you? I mean, really." They stared at him and for the first time since the Doctor had met the two men they actually looked like brothers to him. John was small and unassuming, in his white lab coat and thin-rimmed glasses while Lewis was taller and bulker and... well, more menacing, but at that time, they were sporting identical insulted expressions. The Doctor had missed insulting humans. He grinned and without another word, he was off, once again.  
It turned out that the Doctor's hunch was correct.  
Five minutes later he was racing through the sliding doors of Lab Six that, for the time being, no one had bothered locking. He stopped in the centre of the room and turned in a tight circle. He stared at the screwdriver in confusion. "What?" He demanded of it. "There's nowhere else to turn!"  
John and Lewis weren't far behind. "God, hanging out with you, you don't half get fit," Lewis grumbled as John leant on him. "Where's the Pod then?"  
"The screwdriver is being stupid. It's saying it's here!"  
"How about the ventilation grille?"  
Lewis and the Doctor turned around and glared at John. "The ventilation grille." They said in unison.  
John pointed to a square of the silvery flooring in the corner of the room. It looked almost identical to the rest of the floor but now that the Doctor's attention had been drawn to it, he could tell the silvery colour was off somehow, changed by the dozens of tiny gaps to allow the room to be ventilated. He bent close to it and pulled the cover off, revealing a small hole that a grown man could easily slip down. He grinned at the two men that were looking down at  
"Going down," and with a wink, he dropped and swung onto the ladder.


	12. I Need a Doctor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jackie is furious but Rose is getting better  
> The Doctor realised one or two things when Rose was sick...  
> He can't live without her

The small room that the Doctor dropped off the ladder into was little more than a maintenance shed. It was dark, the only light source being a small bulb hanging from a slightly swinging chain and the blinking lights of a huge generators that powered the computers on the level that housed Lab Six. They filled the whole room with a dull whirring, matched only by the loud fwoom, fwoom, fwoom of the gigantic fan that cooled the machinery. The whole placed smelled of metal and electricity.  
The Doctor turned, still staring at his sonic screwdriver so he was facing the north wall and froze, lowering the Screwdriver as he heard Lewis jump down into the small metal box. He rolled his shoulders and shouted up the shaft.  
"Not much room down here John!" He called. Without waiting for a response, he moved forward so he was abreast with the Doctor and followed his stunned gaze.  
They looked a lot like wasp nests. Two white cocoons, the larger one of which was completely shredded, had been spun in each of the two corners of that north wall, stretching out with web-fine strands that anchored it to the ceiling and floor. Frozen in mid-drip, loops of dried, flaking resin hung from the ceiling and as the Doctor reached out to touch the shredded cocoon, the outer layer sloughed off like ash.  
"This... These are... are... they're..."  
"Cocoons." The Doctor finished Lewis' mumblings while he approached the whole cocoon. It was smaller than the shredded one, still not fully grown, the thought of which filled the Doctor with guilty relief. "Don't let John come down here." He nodded to the shredded cocoon to fortify his meaning.  
"He won't anyway. He's claustrophobic and I've already said there's not much room."  
"Good man." With a frown he stared dead at the growing cocoon and quickly twisted his wrist, flicking the sonic screwdriver up and deactivating it with flourish. There was a shriek, a chorus of frustrated clicking before, with a slight thud, the green Pod dropped out of the bottom of the half-completed cocoon, the white web-like substance flaking almost immediately. The Doctor kissed the sonic screwdriver, placed it carefully in his pocket and crouched down, gently rolling the Pod out from under the disintegrating cocoon. He lifted it and stood back up.  
"What do we do with you? Eh?" He asked the Pod, turning to face Lewis.  
"Shouldn't we destroy it?"  
"What?"  
Lewis nodded to the Pod. "That thing almost killed Rose. The other one killed Ella... Shouldn't we make sure that they never hurt anyone again?"  
The Doctor looked down at the Pod in his hands. Now that the link with Rose had been broken, it was harmless... defenceless. He could crush it right now, like he wanted to when Rose's life was in danger. He shouldn't hesitate. He didn't want to hesitate.  
He wanted to crush it. His hands tensed, looking down at the green Pod, lying in his hands.  
It was just trying to live. Rose wouldn't begrudge it. She wouldn't want him to kill it. It was defenceless... it was just trying to live. It didn't choose to kill. It had no choice.  
The Doctor had a choice and he was not about to disappoint Rose by choosing wrong. He would stop it from hurting anyone else but he wouldn't kill it.  
Eventually, he wanted to help it.  
"No." The Doctor decided, shaking his head once.  
Lewis gaped. "It almost killed Rose! One of them killed Ella! Doesn't it deserve to die?!"  
The Doctor scowled. "It had no choice! Do you humans deserve to die when you kill animals to survive?! When you kill your planet to survive?! The only reason this thing hurt Rose was because it was trying to survive! It doesn't know. While it is in this form, it knows nothing! I won't kill it."  
"A Pod killed Ella."  
The Doctor shook his head. "I won't kill it."  
"I will, then!"  
"You'll have to go through me first!"  
With a hiss that he pushed from between this clenched teeth, Lewis turned around and glared at the shredded cocoon. There was a moment of silence while both men seethed to themselves. Lewis knew the Doctor had a point, but there was a bubbling rage that was burning inside of him, a desire to protect Rose and to fight for her... to prove he cared more for her than this... this Doctor. He was angry, worse, he felt guilty for willing the Doctor to crush the Pod. It didn't know what it was doing... it was sent here to destroy humanity without its knowledge or even its permission.  
It was a while before he tentatively broke the quiet. "This... This is from Ella's Pod?" He asked, nodding to the other cocoon.  
The Doctor nodded. "He would have changed to human form and then fought his way out of the cocoon... There is quite a large possibility he would look quite similar to Ella."  
"You... what?!"  
"He took everything that was her... he built himself around her... his temperament would be similar, his hair colour, facial structure... Imagine if Ella had a twin brother. That's what he would look like." He shook his head. "He would function for a time as a regular human being... but..."  
"But what?"  
The Doctor frowned.  
"Are you two finished down there?" John's voice echoed through the ventilation shaft above them.  
"We're done!" Lewis called up.  
"Good, because security is here and wondering what the hell we're doing."

She was sitting by the fire and he watched her from the muffled darkness of the doorway, watching her cry.  
He had returned to the ward as soon as he had managed to convince the security guard that they weren't trying to steal the generators to find Rose sitting up in her bed, looking around the room in confusion. As the doors slid open, her head snapped toward the noise and the Doctor almost sobbed, gratified that, at least in part, her senses were returning.  
He also knew that, even bedraggled as she was, he had never seen a creature more beautiful.  
She blinked. "Doctor?" Her arm reached out, fingers testing the air before her. She still couldn't see but she was moving. Talking. She was alive.  
She cried when he said her name, when he touched her skin. Her grip was hard, desperate and his hairs rose on his arms, knowing how much she needed him and how scared she must have been without him. He held her as she sobbed and he whispered to her, telling her that he was there now and all was going to be okay.  
She asked what happened to Ella...  
Jackie looked like she was fixing to slap him again when they finally got home. He was prepared for the verbal and physical attack but instead she fiercely hugged her daughter and led her away while Pete took the Doctor through to get food.  
He warned him to probably stay away from Jackie for the time being.  
Rose showered, cleaned herself up, ate and made her way downstairs into the lounge to deal with everything that had happened to her and to deal with the sudden knowledge that while they saved her, Ella had not been so lucky.

I couldn't stop crying but then again, that was me all over. I had been a complete wreck over the last few weeks, crying over the smallest thing that happened between the Doctor and I, all the emotions that were bubbling up inside me, not all of which I could understand.  
This time, however, I was fully justified in what I felt.  
There was nothing in the world that ever compared to the fear that overwhelmed me after the Pod began to take my senses away. The loss of hearing was terrifying but I was... okay because I knew the Doctor was with me, I could see him, read his lips as he talked to John and Lewis and I knew he was going to make me better.  
Losing my sight was worse. I couldn't see him anymore. The only way I knew he was there was when he was touching me... and then that was gone. I was alone... more alone than I knew because in the darkness that surrounded me, the silence that crushed into me... Ella had died. One of the Pods that I had been watching over had taken the life of my friend. Stolen it.  
I knew he was there; he wasn't as sneaky as he wanted to believe. I wanted him close but my mum had spent the last two hours stomping around the bedroom, swearing and cursing his name and I was kind of angry at him for telling her what was wrong and scaring her out of her wits. I argued that he could have lied but my mum wouldn't hear any of it. She didn't go so far as to kick him out of the house but it would take some time before they were on talking terms.  
But I wanted my best friend back.  
"I know you're there." I told him, wiping my face with the back of my hand. I turned my head to look at him and smiled sadly. "You're not very good at being sneaky."  
A brief smile flashed upon his features but when I blinked, it was gone and I couldn't be sure if it hadn't been my imagination. "You're... better?" He stepped into the room a little more, obviously unsure.  
"Nearly all better." It all felt wrong. He was unsure and nervous and I wasn't completely sure if I wanted him as close to me. I knew I looked awful, all swollen eyes and messy damp hair, and all my emotions and feelings were out of whack. I lost my friend and my mother was left here, worried sick while I inched closer to death. In reality, that wasn't his fault, I realised; she would have worried even without knowing the particulars of what had happened to me.  
"Rose..." I looked up at him again. His face was torn. He was stood too far away and his hands were clenching and unclenching as if he were purposefully giving them something to do, his voice trembled and there was something else in his eyes, a fear... something I'd never known to happen... a need.  
Shaking I stood up. "Doctor... are you... alright?" It felt strange, asking him. After all, shouldn't it be me? Wasn't I supposed to be the one that was not alright?  
He looked down. "I nearly lost you." He told me, quietly. Frowning, I took a step forward and reached out to touch his hand. With a speed that surprised me, his hand flicked open and grasped my fingers, hard. I felt them, dully, my senses, while back, were not back to their original state and I guessed that if they were, his grip would have hurt. But it was nice... strange...  
Stranger still was what his actions meant: the Doctor was not in control.  
"I'm here." I told him, grasping his fingers in return. "I'm not going anywhere..."  
He stepped closer to me. "But you did. I couldn't reach you." He lifted his other hand and pushed my hair out of my face before gently stroking my cheek. The feather-light touch, while not all there, sent a shiver down my spine. "You were so far away and I just kept thinking... I kept thinking how much I wanted you back... to hear your voice. Touch your skin... You were all I thought about."  
"I was still... there." I didn't understand.  
He shook his head. "You were trapped in your own head, Rose. I wanted you." He pulled me closer. "I want you."  
My heart beat once, slowly as I searched his face. All I saw there was fear, need and desire... the most human collection of emotions that I could imagine and they were dancing in his eyes without any walls pushing them back, he was there, standing in front of me, telling me that he wanted me and with that knowledge, again, my heart let out another stunned beat. "You... want me."  
His grip on me increased. "I need you, Rose Tyler. I wanted to wait for so many things, for you to be sure about us but, but our situation will never, ever be normal... we have so much history and all that history involves him and you will always keep us separate... it's how your mind will deal with it all. I know you love him, I know it but if that's the case, then you love me too."  
I found myself nodding. "I do love you." I told him, breathlessly. His grip wasn't as strong anymore, it was soft, slow... careful. But he wasn't drawing back... if anything, I felt him coming closer to me. My heart was catching up now, beats stronger, louder... more painful in my chest. I was aching. An exquisite ache that burned inside me and I held it close as he leaned a little closer to me.  
"Rose Tyler..." he whispered, his lips a moment from mine. In that moment, I saw time and space, saw what I once had and what I could've had...  
This... this was better.  
His lips claimed mine and my arms automatically flew around his body, pinning him to me as my lips parted desperately under his. His hands were cupping my face, fingers pressing hard against my skin and the kiss deepened. I wanted to feel more of this, and I inwardly cursed my body and its speed of recovering.  
But then... the desperation with which he was kissing me was intoxicating. My hands were not gentle as I gripped him, as my fingers tumbled over themselves as I pushed his blazer off his torso, as I fumbled with the buttons on his shirt. I was not careful as I bit down on his lip and he responded by increasing his grip on me and letting a deep moan rumble at the back of his throat. His hands were in my hair, pulling me closer, they were holding my waist, fingers gripping my hip, stroking my jawline, I couldn't keep track and I reciprocated in the only way that made sense to me. My hands explored him in the way that I had fantasised about for what seemed like forever, since that first regeneration, since seeing that cheeky smile, the eyes that softened whenever he looked at me.  
I thought about all the times I had almost lost him and I couldn't take it.  
He shrugged his shirt off and it fell to the floor beside the crumpled blazer and his arms were back around me, pressing his lips across my jawline, trailing fire down my throat where he kissed me and his fingers curled around the hem of my pyjama top I had donned after my shower. There was no hesitation this time and we parted for a second as he pulled it off my body, returning almost instantly as his hand crept slowly up, tickling my ribs unintentionally toward my bare chest. I almost moaned when his fingers grazed my nipple but the sudden intake of breath was enough for his lips to quirk up slightly as he slowly backed me toward the sofa.  
I fell upon the cushions and he carefully followed me to settle in between my legs, lowering his head to cover my chest in kisses, exploring my body like he had wanted to do so for the longest time and my heart pounded at the contact and the accompanying thoughts. He was kissing me. He wanted me. His tongue flicked out carefully over my nipple while his other hand gently squeezed, his thumb toying with the other, using small circular motions to make me whimper slightly.  
His touch was driving me crazy and I needed more of him. I sat up a little and reached my hands down to his trousers, fingering across a little to find the button I had failed to undo last time and he chuckled a little as my fingers tickled his exposed stomach. My fingers found the clasp and it was undone, but before I could even begin to shimmy them down the Doctor's legs, he took hold of the waistband of my shorts and quickly pulled them down over my mine.  
He grinned at me for a moment and ducked down once more to press his lips against the swell of my breast, his right hand slowly creeping down to my throbbing core. I had fantasised about those hands, touching me, threading through my hair, cupping my face as he leaned in to kiss me but there was nothing in my wildest dreams that could prepare me for the feel of his hands, his smooth, surprisingly expert fingers slowly beginning to caress me. He began slow, two fingers carefully massaging in sweet tight circles while his other hand tangled in my hair at the base of my skull and pulled me closer so he could press his lips to mine, smirking as I let out a small moan.  
His gentle ministrations sent little shocks through my system, each one stronger than the one that came before as if his fingers, the way he touched me was helping heal the damage that had been done by the Pod. His pressure increased slightly, fuelled by some sort of need, the same need that was reflected in his eyes when I opened mine to look into his face. My heart was pounding. He was so beautiful.  
Each moan that escaped my lips seemed to spur him on and he held my body tighter, kissing my skin harder with a desperation that both scared me and excited me. His fingers were perfect, rolling and pressing, massaging and stroking and the fire that was burning within me flared up without warning and I gasped, reaching up to snarl my shaking fingers in his hair.  
"D... Doctor..." I sighed.  
"Rose?" I could feel his arousal pressed against my hip and it sent another wave of excitement through me, fuelling the orgasm that was quickly rising through me, turning every thought in my head to smoke, frying every nerve in my body with delicious electricity.  
"Doctor..." My voice was more desperate now and his pressure increased.  
"Tell me, Rose." He whispered in my ear, his breath sending shivers through me.  
"I'm... I'm gonna..." The fire consumed me before my sentence could make itself whole and I clung to him, trembling as the blaze shot through my limbs, the dull throbbing feeding the desire that ricocheted through me and I cried out, gasping his name as he held his fingers pressed against my core, covering my face and throat with kisses. The blaze burned itself out, left me gasping and looked up at him with hungry eyes. "I need you." I whispered breathlessly.  
He grinned at me before he slowly moved away and I tried to reach for him, frowning slightly before I could realise with my orgasm-befuddled head that he was only removing his boxer shorts. He quickly returned to me and settled himself above me, looking down into my face, frowning slightly.  
"Are you sure?" he whispered.  
I couldn't speak, I didn't trust myself to in case I broke the spell that had wrapped itself around us, so instead, I nodded and he gently pressed his forehead to mine, using his hand to slowly and gently guide his generous length to press against my entrance. Once more, he looked into my face for the wordless permission he sought and, seemingly satisfied with what he saw there, he gently lowered himself and allowed his length to slide into me.  
The sound of his moan almost pushed me over the edge but the feel of him inside me kept he centred, kept me anchored to the world around me and I looked up into his face. He let out a shuddering breath and suddenly pressed his lips against mine before, with infinite care, he began to thrust.  
I couldn't really comprehend what happened to me that night as the Doctor softly made love to me on our favourite sofa in my parent's lounge. There were no words I could use to describe the way he whispered my name under his passion-filled breath as he softly rocked against me, his hands exploring my body, his tongue massaging mine and even if there were someone I wanted to explain it to, something would stop me. This moment was mine and the Doctor's. It belonged to us. The way he held me tighter whenever an orgasm flew through me, never tiring of the way my body buckled and I moaned. He never tired in the knowledge that it was him doing this to me. The reason my orgasms flooded through my body was because of him, his touch, his words... the way he made love to me that continuously made my mind reel.  
His rhythm was soft and gentle to begin with but with time, he began to change, the passion building, his speed increasing, his groans and moans becoming more desperate and I knew that his climax was fast approaching and my heart pounded at the thought that it was me, me that was responsible.  
I ran my hands up his strong arms as he groaned, pressing a kiss to his sweat-sheathed skin. "I love you." I whispered and he lost it, pounding into me hard, faster and I gasped, burying my head into his shoulder. He groaned, whispered my name as he spilled his seed into me, holding my body in his hands so hard that it hurt in the most delicious way and I gasped as my final orgasm flew through my nerves, turning my whole consciousness in on itself for one glorified instant. As his climax reached its end, the Doctor slumped against me, pressing his lips against mine softly before he then kissed my forehead softly, breathing heavily.  
"W...Wow..." He whispered softly.  
Despite myself, I giggled. "Wow, indeed."  
His face was euphoric and I ran a hand through his sweat-drenched hair, smiling. He kissed me quickly once more. "Oh, before I forget." He told me softly. "I love you too."  
I beamed at him.  
"Rose?"  
My eyes widened. Not now! The Doctor's face mirrored my panic and he quickly stood, slipping from me in a way that made me giggle and bend to pick up his boxer shorts. I waved at him to hide behind the curtain and he did so, picking up his shed clothes as he ran. I stared at his bottom as he fled to the curtains, smirking.  
"I'm in here, mum!" I flung on my pyjama top and pulled on my shorts just before Jackie opened the lounge door.  
She threw a look at me when she entered. "Where is he?" She asked and I mirrored her look, annoyed.  
"He?" I asked, more than a little peeved and she pursed her lips in reply. I sighed. "The Doctor is not here and I'd prefer it if you stopped blaming him for everything that happens to me. I got ill because of my job and the Doctor was trying to make me better. Without the Doctor here, I would have died, mum. He saved my life, so start treating him that way rather than being all uppity that he told you the truth about what was happening to me."  
She gaped at me for a moment. "I was worried about you."  
"Then thank him for making it so you don't have to worry about me!"  
"I WORRY ABOUT YOU EVERY TIME YOU ARE WITH HIM!"  
The silence that followed her shout echoed through the room and rang dismally in the air before I stood up, slowly. "Well, stop it. I'm fine. He's fine. I love him and that's all that matters. Stop worrying because we're happy. All the time I travelled with him before... and I'm fine. All the times I almost died... and I'm fine. Without him, I would not be fine. I'd be stuck in some dead-end job with a man I probably didn't love eating chips and watching the telly... I've seen so much mum, and it's made me who I am and, god, I love who I am, mum. I love who I am. I love who he has made me." I stopped my rant for a minute and smiled softly. "He made me better."  
She shook her head. "You're a soppy one, I'll give you that, Rose." Her eyes narrowed at me. "Fine. I'll give him one more chance but if he does anything remotely... Doctorish again... I'll wear his guts as a scarf." She huffed for a minute and I smiled softly at her.  
"What are you doing here, anyway?" I asked her.  
"I was wondering how you were feeling but it seems you're pretty much back to normal." She walked forward and pulled me into a hug. "I love you, Rose, you know that right?"  
I hugged her in return. "I know, mum. I love you too."  
She left not long after and the Doctor, now dressed in his boxer shorts and shirt, peered around the corner. "Is it safe?" He asked me. I nodded as I giggled and he had the good grace to look relieved. "Your mother doesn't half scare me sometimes."  
I batted him softly with the back of my hand and pulled him into my arms and he accepted the embrace, gladly. "Do you want to go to bed?" I asked him, pressing a kiss to his cheek.  
"To your bed?" He grinned at me.  
I shrugged, coyly. "If you'd like."  
"Oh... I'd like."


	13. I Need to Live

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is still the original Pod to look after and now, in human form, it will do what it needs to survive...

When I awoke the next morning, it took a moment for me to remember why my body was aching, aching in the most delicious way I could have ever expected to experience and I rolled over, blinking in the sunlight that was streaming through that pesky ever-present gap in my curtains. He grumbled as I rolled into him and my face cracked into a broad smile before I turned to face him properly and rested my arm on his bare chest, using his shoulder as a pillow.  
“Mmm.” He murmured against my hair, pressing his lips against it. “Good morning.” He pulled his arm from under the duvet and ran his fingers along the skin on my arm, goosebumps rising where he'd touched me.  
I watched his fingers trace patterns on my arm for a moment, remembering gladly the way his fingers had done the same thing the night before on the skin on my back, after we had both woken from our dreams to the darkness that permeated my room. I had reached for him, half-asleep and he had complied to my touch, kissing me softly, sweetly as I boldly straddled him. His hands did not cease to touch my body and as I gently rocked upon him, his hands traced the same patterns as they were now doing upon my back.  
“What are you doing?” I asked him and his hand stilled. He kissed my hair.  
“I'm writing your name on your skin.” He whispered.  
I wrinkled my nose. “My name doesn't look like that.” I told him.  
He chuckled. “Just as well, I'm writing it in Gallifreyan.” I looked up at him as he spoke and his warm brown eyes were bright with some hidden emotion that I couldn't quite decipher. It looked like happiness but with a small edging of fear or maybe wonder but with sadness etched somewhere within and I reached up to touch his face, not wanting to see him sad or afraid. He smiled and kissed my hand. “You have an incredibly pretty name...”  
“I'd like to see my name in Gallifreyan.”  
The sadness faded a little as his smile grew. “One day, I will have to show you properly.” With that, he wrapped his arms back around me and we settled into a warm silence, broken only by the sound of his heart beating in my ear.  
“Doctor?” I murmured, breaking the silence while stretching my body slightly lazily against his side.  
“Mmmm?” His eyes were closed but a small smile was tugging at the corner of his mouth. I smiled and kissed his shoulder gently and his warm brown eyes opened, lowering gently to mine.  
I rested my head on his shoulder, my eyes still on his dear features. “What were you thinking... when you saw me again? I mean after the earth had moved and you were with Donna...”  
“Before the Dalek?” He relaxed into the pillow and looked up at the ceiling. “When I realised that you were there and turned around to see you, it was as if the world had just stopped. I couldn't feel the turn of the earth, I couldn't feel anything but it was okay because you were there, with me.” He held me tighter. “The only thing I was thinking was Rose. Rose, Rose, Rose, Rose, Rose, Rose, Rose, Rose. You were there, and that's all I needed. I forgot everything. I forgot the earth had moved, I forgot Donna and I forgot you were even gone. It's not easy for a Time Lord to forget.”  
I lay there, listening to him speak and finally understanding the depth of his feelings for me. I smiled and cuddled closer to him.  
“Do we need to get up?” He asked me, softly.  
I shook my head. “No. My mum hasn't tried to waltz in my room just yet and I want to cuddle you until she does. I think she has some sort of Snuggle Radar to tell her when we're getting too close.”  
He smirked. “We were rather close last night...” He reminded me.  
I giggled. 

Nix decided that life was good.  
It hadn't always been good. In fact, over the last six months, it had been downright awful, filled with nights of passed out drunk upon a bar, mornings that passed her by completely and fights, screams and beatings, bringing her experience of life down to a mere existence. Her regular haunt was the seediest bar she could find, the only place he wouldn't think to find her and it was that place that she had met the one thing that had started to make everything... better.  
The sound of her footsteps echoed loudly upon the naked floorboards as she tightly hugged her arms to her body. She was nervous. This was her, her, Nicola Lloyd, finally making a stand. It had been weeks, only two, since she had walked out on her asshole of a boyfriend to create a new life for herself. Two weeks since she had started looking for a job. Two weeks since everything had started looking up. Two weeks since she had met him.  
Her head jerked up at his footsteps and she smiled.  
“Do you like it?” He asked her, softly. She tried to swallow the silly words that were clambering up her throat and instead turned in a tight circle, letting herself imagine what this place would look like with her furniture and her personal touches crammed in. The thought made her grin.  
“I love it.” She told him, softly. Her grin widened and her excitement suddenly became too much for her. She let herself be overcome with it and jigged on the spot, giggling. “Oh! I love it! I love it!”  
He laughed and reached out to her, pulling her into a quick embrace. “Good,” he breathed. She disentangled herself from his arms and stepped into the room that would soon become her bedroom, turning in a small circle.  
“This is somewhere where I could start again!” He laughed as she turned to him, grinning widely. “Isn't it wonderful?!”  
He moved toward her slowly, reaching out a hand to brush the fabric of her sleeve, pulling it up a little way so he could see the skin on her arm. The bruises caused by that bastard were healing, so only a dull yellow pattern remained upon her forearm but there were other marks, other marks that were hidden under the assorted bracelets and stray pieces of leather and fabric that would never really heal. She looked up at his face, his shadowed blue eyes and swallowed, hard, at his proximity. She could smell him and her brain buzzed uncomfortably in the knowledge that even though she wanted him to be close to her, there would be no way she would trust him. Not really. Not after...  
His fingers brushed the pale once-bruises and he raised his eyes to meet hers. “I want you safe, Nix.” He told her, softly. “I'm glad you're away from him, I really am... but I can't shake this feeling I get...”  
Nix raised her hands and carefully cupped his face, allowing herself to step into the shelter of his closeness, pushing her reservations to the back of her mind. “I'm going to be fine. Look, I'm here... All safe and sound.” She tried to smile at him but her fear weighed the edges down slightly.  
“I don't want to lose you, John.”  
She froze. “John?”  
“Huh?”  
“Who... who is John?”  
He frowned and dropped his hands, his blue eyes becoming shadowed as he thought. “I don't... I don't know.”  
Nix cocked her head to one side. “When was the last time you actually slept? You've been running around like a blue-arsed fly, trying to get these viewings set up for me... You look exhausted.”  
He nodded slowly, smiling a little as Nix allowed her hands to thread through his hair, delighting in the softness of his blonde tresses. “I guess I am a little tired.” He told her. His arms came up around her again and he carefully pulled her to him, pressing a kiss to her forehead. This felt backwards somehow, but nice... somehow also nostalgic. His arms tightened around her and she laughed.  
“Come on,” She murmured against his chest. “Let's go find that agent and tell him that I'll take it.” She pulled away and smiled up at him, a big grin that only just held remnants of the horrors of the last couple of years.  
Her smile was infectious and he felt his own pulling up at the corners of his mouth, “You're the boss, Nix.”  
“Shut up, Ellis.” 

Two weeks. Two weeks of this. I danced around the kitchen to Abba, mainly thanks to my mother's iPod that sat in the dock at the window and I didn't really have the heart to switch it with my own, simply because, secretly Abba made me smile. The eggs were cooking, toast in the toaster and the Doctor was due down any minute after his shower. Jackie was sitting at the kitchen table, jigging her foot to Dancing Queen as I skidded along the tiles to the toaster, just in time for the bread to pop up.  
“You're in a good mood,” Jackie commented, chewing on the end of her pen, looking down at her half-finished crossword puzzle. Her eyes glittered as she turned her face toward me. “I wonder why.”  
I ignored her and continued to dance on the spot while buttering the bread. She had a point. Over the last two weeks the Doctor and I had been inseparable. Well, we were inseparable before but now, it was different, it felt different. We'd both admitted that we weren't whole without the other and apparently, that makes a difference... even to a casual observer like my mother who had twigged about mine and the Doctor's... activities the morning after.  
We were standing by the coffee maker, talking quietly to one another when she walked in. She stood, stared for a moment and her face cracked into the biggest grin you would expect from anyone. She didn't say anything to us, instead just perched at the kitchen table, just like that precise moment.  
Since my rant at her the night I returned from Torchwood, she had returned to her former attitude to the Doctor, mainly for my sake, and the atmosphere had settled back into the easiness of before. Except the minor difference of mine and the Doctor's newfound energy for one another, and that was beyond anything I had trusted myself to imagine.  
But there was still the matter of the other Pod, the Pod that had escaped after killing my friend.  
The thought of Ella as alone and scared as I was, lying there, knowing nothing of where she was, who she was with and what was going to happen to her... and not being saved... dying in that manner... it killed me every time I thought about it. I would not wish it on anyone, the closing in of the senses, breaking down of your mind, only to be lost in your own fear and torment, imagining the worst because that's all you could possibly do. You are trapped. Alone. Terrified.  
And she died like that.  
I knew the Doctor had tried everything he could to make sure she didn't die but he just hadn't managed it in time. She died the same day my sight went, apparently, so there was no way for me to know. I should have been there for her. I let her down.  
My thoughts always carried this vein, but one touch from the Doctor would silence my thoughts. He made everything better, he made me better.  
It was on that morning, as I was dancing around kitchen with a spatula and a buttery knife, that my phone rang. Now that we knew what the pods were, one of which was placed in the Lab again with a “No Women Allowed” sign slapped on the door under the watchful eye of one of John's subordinates, I was allowed to finish the rest of my interrupted time off. With Ella's funeral, periodic visits from an increasingly ragged Lewis, some part of me wanted to get back to work, but I knew that there was no good reason to take the Doctor with me anymore, not like that would stop him. Stubborn git.  
Once again, I skidded to where my phone was lying on the counter beside the cooker. “Hello?” I answered, scrambling my already scrambled eggs.  
“ _Hey, Rose_.” I winced. He sounded awful.  
“Morning Lewis, what's up?”  
“ _Can you come to the Lab_?” I paused in my scrambling, frowning slightly.  
“Lewis, you know I can't do that. The Pod's still there.” I remembered the Doctor telling me that he had spared the Pod and, although it had almost killed me, I felt happy at that. He told me that it was part of a massive race he had known of once. He didn't go into details but I knew there was more, he just wasn't ready to tell me yet and I guessed, when it boiled down to it, I was alright with that. I had to be, right?  
“ _Okay, not the Lab but I've managed to find something_.”  
“Since when do you work for Torchwood?”  
I heard Lewis sigh and tried to fight down a grin. It was always so fun to torment him. “ _I don't. John pulled some strings and got me clearance for a couple of weeks. I think I've found something to lead us to Ella's Pod_.”  
I froze. “You're a Private Eye now?”  
“ _Rose_!”  
“Alright, I'm sorry... I just...” I chewed on my lip, not wanting to say the words that were clawing up my throat. Would I be thought less of if I told him that I was scared? The Doctor said that the human Pod would now look quite a lot like Ella now, having took everything that was her, and I wasn't totally sure I could deal with that, not now I wasn't sure the Doctor could take it. He was so much more... squishy now.  
“ _You just what_?”  
“Why do you need me?” I winced, even as the words left me. How selfish could I be?! Didn't I want Ella's killer to meet justice? He was out there, wearing a human skin, wanting to mate and create more of those bastard Pods... maybe female ones where the Doctor and Lewis and John would be in danger.  
“ _Rose. I just do, please_?”  
I sighed and looked up, just as the Doctor walked into the kitchen, drying his hair with a fluffy blue towel. The thought of him without his senses, lying there like Ella had, and I couldn't take it. I nodded and lowered my voice. “I'll see you in an hour.”  
I pressed the end call button before Lewis could even spit out a reply and threw the phone on the counter as the Doctor approached me. I fixed a bright smile on my face and went back to my destroyed eggs. “Oh.” I managed to sound disappointed. “I burned them.”  
He laughed and wrapped his arms around me, pulling me closer. “That's alright, we can always make more.” He stepped around me quickly to the fridge, where he pulled out a carton of eggs, turning so he could wrap his arm around my waist again, spinning me slightly to the music. “Go sit down, I've got this.” His voice made a warm shudder pass through me and I skipped around him to slide in, gracefully by my mother. She was looking at me.  
“Where are you going?” I gulped. I hadn't realised she had heard me but I turned my head slyly to make sure the Doctor wasn't listening and, after seeing him throwing the burned eggs out, I looked at my mother. “I'm going to go to work. There's something I have to do and if he knew, the Doctor try to come with me. I don't want that.”  
“Trouble in paradise?” She grinned as she continued to chew on her pen.  
I glared at her, but her grin did not waver once. “No, mum.” I snapped. “It could be dangerous for him.”  
Her eyebrow shot up, not the response she was waiting for. “Dangerous... for him? And now you think I'm just going to let you go when it's dangerous for him?”  
“He's human now, mum.”  
“So are you!”  
“Yes, but I've always been human. I know what can kill me and I'm used to not running head-first into trouble-” she scoffed and I glared.“-but he's still got it in his head that he can regenerate. But he can't. He's like us now mum and I won't let him get hurt.”  
She frowned, not convinced.  
“I'm going, mum, whether you like it or not.” 

Surprisingly, the Doctor, after swallowing my half-lie about having to pop into work to properly hand-over to the new carer for the remaining, now harmless, Pod, let me go without complaint. He gave me a quick kiss, swung in beside a harassed looking Pete, who was poring over paperwork, and attempted to help him puzzle it out. I was a little taken aback but somewhat glad. I didn't want to have to lie to him more than what was necessary.  
I found Lewis in the Security Room for the floor that housed Lab Six. He was sitting at the desk in front of the massive monitor with two other security guards I hadn't met before lurking by his shoulder. George had let me in before returning to his spot on Lewis' left, announcing that he was about to go home but Lewis had demanded the use of the Security Room and as he hadn't signed off yet, anything Lewis did would fall under George's responsibility. He was watching him like a hawk.  
“So what's all this about?” I moved forward to stand next to George, ignoring the unfriendly glances I was receiving from the other guards. I didn't belong there, for all they knew, I was here as some sort of security breach. I was not welcome.  
“Look.” Lewis didn't even glance my way as he tapped a few keys on the massive keyboard George had manned before. He had already brought up the same corridor I had seen on my last visit here but a couple of days after the Pod had gone missing. “You need to see this.” Again he tapped on the keys, turning in the cushioned chair to gauge my reaction.  
“What am I looking at here?”  
“Just watch.” He frowned a little. “Where's the Doctor?”  
I ignored him and sighed, leaning forward slightly on the desk to better see the empty corridor outside Lab Six that was being shown on the screen. For a moment, a long moment, nothing happened, and I found myself glaring at my friend out of the corner of my eye. After a couple of minutes, my annoyance reached its peak. “Is something supposed to be happening?”  
“Rose just watch that's all I – THERE! Just there! Look!”  
I turned back to the monitor and instantly frowned. The just-visible door to Lab Six slid open with a hiss that I couldn't hear and despite myself, I leaned forward, squinting to better see the hazy, grainy image, that even through my utter disbelief, told me everything I needed to know. The doors slid open and someone stepped out.  
It was a man, quite tall with a mop of fair hair that shone in the florescent lighting above him. His feet and legs were bare, his torso and thighs covered only by a lab coat that he had obviously taken from the lab, buttoned up to the throat. He looked both ways, quickly before taking the route that would carry him past the security camera they were now watching him on. Lewis paused it with flourish and the image stilled so I could, for the first time, see his face.  
High cheekbones, full lips. It was Ella... but not Ella. For a start, he was a man but the hair, the eyes, the facial structure, even the height of him just screamed Ella. He had taken my friend. He had stolen everything that was her. And I hated him for it.  
“Rose?”  
“Where does he go?”  
“What?”  
I turned to look at Lewis. “You can see where he went from here can't you? If we find out where he went, maybe it would get us closer to finding him?”  
He blinked at me. “You want to find him.”  
“He's an alien. He's going to want to mate with humans to create more Pods and if he does that, then everything we know will be in danger! I can't just sit around while he's out there!” Lewis fixed me with a wide-eyed stare and I stood up, realising, suddenly, that I had made an awful, awful mistake. The Doctor should be here. He would be able to find the Pod or whatever that person was now. What was I going to do? I could barely keep myself together, let alone avenge my friend – and was that what I really wanted? Did I really want to avenge Ella? What was I going to do if I even found this thing? The Doctor would know and I knew, myself, that I was an idiot for leaving him at home. “You wouldn't understand.” And I turned and stormed out of the Security Room. He needed to be here.  
I managed to get halfway down the corridor to the elevator before I realised that I was not alone.  
“Rose, wait.” I turned and glared at Lewis as he jogged down the hall to catch up with me.  
“What?” I snapped.  
He looked as angry as I did. “It's not easy you know?” He said to me as he caught up. He crossed his arms over his chest, cut off, annoyed... hurt. “When John and Ella met... I always thought that there was this big secret that they were keeping from me. They'd stop talking whenever I walked into the room, they would message one another late into the night. To begin with, I thought it was their relationship forming, which I was fine with... but even after they made it official... I was still an outsider.”  
“What has that got to do with anything?”  
“Because all this,” he motioned around him, to the building we were standing in, “I'm not used to this! You! You and, and John and, God rest her, Ella... you all know this stuff. I am just a doctor, a regular, human doctor who looks after real sick people and you're expecting me to stand here and understand and know and just accept all this at face value and goddamnit Rose, I just can't. I'm not wired that way.”  
I rolled my eyes. “So what are you doing here? Why don't you just run off back to your precious hospital and make sick people better?” When he didn't answer, I finished his thoughts for him. “Because you know. You have what we have now. You look at the world now and it's dull, lifeless and, and, and, all you want to do is just grab the adventure with both hands, not caring if you get hurt because this, this is really living. You don't want to go back to the hospital and make sick people better... you want to come with me and make a real difference. And you can, Lewis. The smallest person in the world can also be the most important person in the world. The Doctor taught me that.”  
He was staring at me like he had seen me for the very first time, confused but in a weird way, relieved.  
“I thought I was going mad.” He admitted, softly.  
“You're not going mad.” I shrugged. “This is where the human race is going, Lewis. We belong up there! With the stars and moons and all the civilisations that stretch across time and space. We used to think we were so alone but it's different now, we know we're out there and we belong out there with it!”  
He was looking at me with wonder in his eyes and I misinterpreted it, carrying on with my silly words so he would, perhaps, see what I see, know what I know and feel the excitement that was coursing through me at the thought of spinning through those stars again. “If only you could see it.” I closed my eyes. “The world is so much huger than I first imagined but then then, there is so much more out there. Worlds that dwarf ours... seas of diamond, a world that is never put into darkness, it's all so wonder-” whatever it was went unheard as I heard his sigh and felt a sudden jerk as he stepped forward, grabbed my shoulders and roughly pulled me to him, pressing his lips to mine.


	14. I Need Forgiveness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lewis is having a bad day. He gets punched by the woman he loves and sees the male doppelgänger of his best friend.  
> Maybe he should have stayed as a real doctor...

The Doctor's presence was unmissable. I was sitting the the canteen, stabbing my milkshake with a straw when I suddenly jerked up straight, a shock making its way up my spine and causing me to turn my head to the entrance. The man sitting by my side, still pressing a cold-compress to his left eye, followed my gaze and swore bitterly.   
“I can't believe you called him.” He muttered. The Doctor spotted us, waved and then began to weave in and out of the tables, grinning at the now familiar faces that worked in the building. “Why did you have to call him?”  
I turned and narrowed my eyes at Lewis and he glared back at me with his one good eye. “Because he can help us find Ella's Pod. I can't do it without him.”  
“You gonna tell him?”   
I shrugged. “He'll probably ask you why you've got a cold-compress on your eye and will probably become more curious when I tell him that I punched you.”  
He smirked mirthlessly. “You've got one hell of a right hook.”  
“I learned that from my mother.” I sipped my drink and flicked my eyes, once again, up to the Doctor, relief hitting me so hard that I trembled.  
However, there was something else lingering in the pit of my stomach, something that was increasing the closer the Doctor came to our table... something that I didn't really want to think about. As his warm eyes found mine, he smiled and the uncomfortable feeling in my stomach squirmed, causing me to drop my eyes and glare at my milkshake like it had just called my mother something unsavoury. I knew what it was, this feeling, and I knew that, even though it wasn't exactly my fault, it wouldn't go away.  
I let another man kiss me. It was only for a moment, a second or two, before my brain caught up and my arm had swung around to connect with his stupid face. As I sat there in the silence before the Doctor arrived, part of me wanted to punch him again simply because his whole presence offended me. It was his stupid face, his thick skull and that useless squidgy grey mass behind his eyes that really got me pissed off and the hard-done-by attitude he had adopted at my assault just riled me up further. His unhappiness at my calling the Doctor here was another matter entirely.   
He knew, surely, he knew what the Doctor meant to me? Wasn't I obvious in my actions? Even if I weren't, we were friends through Ella so he knew what I was doing at Torchwood... he knew I was searching for the man I fell in love with.   
So why the hell did he kiss me? Why did he have to make me feel so guilty so soon after me and the Doctor had... finally, finally made a move to further this relationship we had. Why did he have to ruin this? I glared at him but he wasn't looking at me but at the Doctor who swung into the seat next to mine, opposite him.  
“What happened to your face?” he asked as a greeting as soon as he sat down.   
“I punched him.” I said, watching as Lewis flinched.  
He laughed, his eyes widening a little as he sensed the atmosphere that hung over the table the two of us sat at. His smile faded a little as he glanced between us. “Why... What happened?”  
I opened my mouth to reply but for some reason, nothing came out. I sat there, one hand grasping my milkshake while I gaped at the man that I loved. His eyes focused on mine for a moment before slicing back into Lewis' guilty gaze. We stayed like that for two minutes before Lewis let out a breathy swear and rolled his shoulders.  
“She punched me because I kissed her.” He muttered.  
The Doctor blinked. “Oh.” His face was carefully impassive and he simply stared at Lewis for a moment before he leaned back in his chair. “Rose sounded quite serious on the phone... what do you need me for?”   
I was shocked. I sat there for a moment, gaping at the Doctor before he turned his eyes to me. He looked at me for an instant before dropping his eyes to the milkshake I was still holding in a shaking grip. Was that all he had to say to us? Oh? Just... just... OH!? I huffed a little and both men looked at me, confused. Lewis looked very relieved, probably because there was no immediate danger of being punched again and, also, somehow, kind of baffled at my annoyance.   
Hell, I was baffled at my annoyance. The Doctor was not pushing the issue of Lewis kissing me... so why did I feel so... so... disappointed? Lewis kissed me, there was no reason for the Doctor to be angry at me but... maybe just something, something to show that he...   
I sighed. “We've got a picture of what Ella's Pod looks like now.” I told him, giving myself a quick internal shake. I took the image that the guards had the foresight to print out for us and pushed it toward the Doctor. He took it and glanced down at the fuzzy image.   
“Striking resemblance.”  
“You said there would be.” Lewis reminded him. “You said that he would essentially be a male version of Ella, so there we are... the only problem is that we have no idea how to find him.”  
“And no idea what to do when we do find him.” I finished. A strange expression passed over the Doctor's face and he rubbed his forehead with a frown.   
“By now, Ella's memories and psyche would be seeping into the Pod's consciousness... everything that the Pod does would now, somehow, be influenced by Ella's thoughts, wants and feelings. We need to start focusing on Ella's previous haunts. Her home... he might even return here as this was a very important place to Ella... he will need the familiarity to feel centred to become one with the emotions that aren't his.” The Doctor seemed to forget that Lewis and I were there and continued in a faraway voice. “It would be slowly making him mad.”   
“So isn't it important that we find him then?” Lewis's voice cut through the quiet that followed after the Doctpr's speech. “I mean, you did say that all the Pod is interested in is mating and destroying the human race. Adding craziness into that mix does not really do wonders for my confidence in this enterprise.”  
The Doctor shook his head. “You misunderstood me. The Pod doesn't want to destroy the human race but if we allow it to continue the way it is, it would eventually become inevitable. It cannot control its nature to mate and continue on with its genetic chain... the death of every human that comes close to its family is just a coincidence.”  
“It doesn't change the fact that we need to stop him though, does it? I mean, preferably before he starts bumping uglies with some innocent woman!”   
“If he is in human form, wouldn't any children he father be human too?” I ignored Lewis' words and focused on my own confusion. It was better than sharing any thoughts with that blockhead.   
He shook his head. “Genetic makeup still hasn't changed. He's still a Pod, through and through but maybe he's lost sight of that? It's possible that all he remembers is that he crawled out of that cocoon... initially at least. Ella's memories would be helping him along, making him appear human – even on a subconscious level. Her ideas, her thoughts and the way she lived life would give him a working knowledge of the human race... how to survive.”   
Lewis lowered the cold compress and I was gratified to see that I had given him quite a shiner. “This is all beginning to make my head hurt.”   
“You're free to go home.” I couldn't stop the snide tone in my voice and I started to feel a little guilty as soon as I realised what I sounded like. I didn't apologise though; part of me didn't think he deserved it.  
The Doctor shook his head. “We need him, Rose. We need to split up. Lewis, are you okay with going to your brother? There is a chance that the Pod will go there first and we need to protect John. I'm guessing that he would not react well to seeing a male doppelgänger of his recently deceased wife.” Lewis nodded and stood. “Call Rose if you see anything.”   
“Aye.” Lewis nodded toward me and left, leaving the cold compress on the table. The glances he received at that impressive black eye made me feel quite proud of myself.  
“What are we doing then?” I asked. He still didn't look at me and my stomach constricted.  
“One of us needs to stay here. As it's more dangerous for you, what with there being only one male Pod in the vicinity, I think I should stay here. Can you think of any other places that Ella liked to go?”   
I nodded. Her favourite restaurant, the park we walked through that she told me was where she spent a lot of her childhood... but there weren't many places... Ella was a very private person... in the few years that I knew her, I only really scratched the surface. “One or two. Are you going to be okay, here on your own?”  
He nodded. “I'll be fine.” He stood up and straightened his coat a little, rolling his shoulders. “I'm out of practice but I'll get used to it.” And he flashed me that grin that I so loved.   
But my stomach still felt so... wrong. 

This was wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. Not where he belonged. Nope. Not here. It smelled wrong. WRONG. It lacked the essence of home. The stranger grumbled and stretched out in his arms, her red hair tickling his chin in a strange way that made him want to bolt and to hold onto her tighter all at the same time. He looked down on her, hoping to still the roaring waves that were crashing inside of him.  
Her face was beautiful. Small and perfect, a little scarred but somehow that just added onto her beauty... she had been through so much and was still able to smile. He could count her eyelashes if he so wished, each one kissing her cheek as her eyes remained closed, allowing her the peaceful sleep that so eluded him.   
She pulled him back, kept the wrongness at bay. She was... home. He brought his arms tighter around her and she mumbled in her sleep, or so he thought. He lifted his eyes to hers as she reached out a hand to touch his face. “You're... not sleeping again.”   
They were both tucked into a small single bed that she was given by one of her relatives. She said that she was lucky to even get that, that there had been a death in the family and the whole lot of them were shocked. Her whole being had changed since she was told by her mother – a mother who apparently couldn't care less about her youngest daughter's antics – so he guessed that Nix herself had suffered some blow by the loss of her family member although she never said anything.  
Distantly, he wondered... did he have a family?  
There was an ache in his chest that he couldn't explain and that... that ache told him, somewhere, that he did.   
Nix frowned. “Ellis, are you okay?” She asked, brushing her fingertips up to touch his furrowed brow. He blinked through her fingertips and sighed. Was this really okay?  
He fixed his face into a small smile. “I'm fine. I just...”   
With a sigh, Nix sat up, frowning deeply. “I shouldn't have asked you to stay.” She muttered. “You don't want to be here.” She flung the blanket off her and slipped off the bed, padding over the naked floorboards to the bedroom door, which she slammed behind her when she left. Ellis sat there for a moment before he swung his legs from the covers and leant his elbows on his knees, rubbing his face in his palms.   
“Shit.” He murmured. He swore again and stood up, making his way to follow the young woman to wherever she had run off to.  
He found her in the makeshift living room, sitting on the beat-up couch with her head in her hands. “Sorry, Ellis.” She said softly as he entered the room. She wasn't looking at him and kept her chin resting on her knees, her legs being drawn up against her chest. She was gripping her arms tightly.   
“Are you going to tell me what's the matter?” He asked her. “You've been weird for days.”   
The girl sighed and kicked her legs down to the floor, flopping back against the cushions. “I know.”   
Ellis sighed. “Look, Nix... maybe I haven't been clear to you as to... what this... is to me...” The look Nix sent to Ellis then was so scared, he almost stopped talking but he took a deep breath and continued. “When I first met you... you were totally lost. I've never seen anyone look as scared as you did at that point... I wanted to take care of you.”   
The girl's face creased in pain. “So now that I'm back on two feet, you're done, right? You want to just... just go?”   
“Will you let me finish?” Nix shut her mouth and stared down at the floor, furrowing her brow as he moved closer to her. “That was when I first met you, Nix. I wanted to take care of you, but now, now that you're here and whole and   
...well... I want to see more.”   
The eyes that lifted to his face were guardedly hopeful. His fingers reached forward and touched her face softly, his fingertips gliding over her skin like a ghost and her breath stopped completely. His hand became surer, palm pressed cupping her cheek as his thumb traced the line of her bottom lip and he delighted in the softness, the rose coloured plumpness that caused his breath to catch whenever he spotted her pouting.  
Nix pouted a lot. He realised that pretty quickly after meeting her. She would do it unconsciously, whenever something crossed her mind that she didn't particularly like or whenever something happened that annoyed her. He found it adorable... and kind of fetching.   
She let out a shuddering breath as he continued to press against her bottom lip with the pad of his thumb, rubbing it gently back and forward as he stared down at her perfectly formed mouth. Her gaze did not waver as she stared up at him and she said not a word, too afraid that any thing she said, any movement, may break the spell that had enveloped the both of them.  
He'd held her. He'd comforted her. He'd stared at her in a way that made her stomach squirm but he'd never done anything like... like this. She was too afraid to do anything in case that look went away.   
She wanted him to look at her like that again.   
“Ellis.” She couldn't help it. The moment needed to break. Or she would. “I... I'm in love with you.”   
His grip on her increased and he pulled her forward, crushing his lips to hers.

“Well shit.” The front door was ajar, only slightly, but it was enough to show that at some point someone had kicked the door in, breaking the lock completely. He crossed his arms, standing on the top step with his head cocked to one side, contemplating.   
“Now.” He shifted his weight onto the other leg and cocked his head to the other side. “I have two choices. One... I could call Rose, tell her that someone has broken into my brother's house and wait until she and the Doctor come and break the case together... or I can... you know, be the hero, kill the badguy, get the girl and save the world. But then again I can continue to stand here like a lunatic talking to myself and fantasising about facing up against an alien that appears to be the male equivalent of my best friend and winning the heart of a woman who is in love with another man.” Lewis rolled his shoulders and moved toward the door, pushing it open with his palm. “Well shit.”   
Lewis crossed the threshold and stepped into the cluttered hallway. It hadn't always been so as Ella had been a complete and utter clean freak but since she passed, the house had slowly gotten worse. However, it wasn't the clutter of his brother's inability to tidy up for himself, no, this was the clutter of someone tearing the house upside down looking for something.   
Frowning, Lewis bent and took up a discarded umbrella in case whoever had broken into his brother's house hadn't had the good grace to leave. Maybe calling for backup was not such a bad idea.   
“Hello?” He called, pushing open one of the side doors with the tip of the umbrella and peering inside. “Just so you know... I'm armed.” He omitted the fact that what he was armed with could barely be passed-off as a weapon.   
There was no reply to his shaking voice and he almost sighed in relief, moving forward through the house as his ears strained to pick up any kind of sound from inside the house. John wasn't going to be here - he was visiting their younger sister - which is why Lewis felt confident enough to start his lurking outside. He didn't particularly want to be questioned by his brother as to why he was sitting in the flowerbed... but now that someone had broken in...  
Well shit.   
Thud. He froze for a moment at the dull noise somewhere above him. Upstairs. He tilted his head to the side, peering up the long curving staircase at the same time as slowly readjusting his grip on his makeshift weapon and pointing it up at an angle just in case any crazed lunatics came bolting down the stairs. They'd meet the tip of the umbrella before they could do any damage to him at least.   
“Oi! Look, if you turn out to be a cat I'm going to be seriously pissed off.”   
No reply.   
Well... well... SHIT!  
Lewis took a deep breath and placed his foot on the first step, his back placed against the wall and body turned slightly so he could see the landing above through the intricately carved wooden bars that Ella was so proud of. Second step, third. The creaking of the stairs that always annoyed him made him feel incredibly vulnerable and he winced at every little sound, even his own laboured breathing as he crept further up the stairs.   
Once at the top, he paused and strained his ears. “Hello?” He checked both directions before he stepped fully onto the landing and hovered for a moment, focusing on the little sounds of the house. The umbrella didn't feel quite so comforting anymore.   
Sob. He almost dropped the umbrella in shock. Sniff. Sob. He turned to the right, his brow furrowed as the unmistakeable sound of someone crying reached him. His grip tightened on his weapon as he made the move forward toward John's bedroom and slowly, with infinite care, he pushed open the door with the tip and stepped fully into the room.  
It was him.   
A man sat in the corner of the room, almost crumpled like a used and forgotten piece of paper, with his back against the wall. He was holding onto a picture frame he had taken from Ella's old dresser and his alarmingly bright blue eyes were flooded with confused tears under an unruly mop of blonde hair. His hands were limp and shaking though the picture did not fall.  
“What are you doing here?” Lewis asked, his voice stronger than he could have hoped. However, the shaking hand that held the umbrella pointed toward the man betrayed his outward calm.  
The man on the floor must have been aware of Lewis' presence because he did not jump at his voice and simply looked up at him with sorrowful eyes. Those were Ella's eyes. “I don't want any trouble.” He said in a voice that held some broken remnant of Ella.   
“I asked you a question.” Lewis told him, still holding up the umbrella with a shaking hand.  
“I'm trying to find my home.” His eyes dropped from Lewis and back down to the photograph. “I was brought here.”   
Lewis' heart clenched. “This is not your home.” It felt so wrong but Ella was in there somewhere... that man, that thing was Ella...   
The man's face creased in pain for a second. “Then... why do I remember?” He asked softly. “I remember coming into this room. I remember a man whose smile was all for me...” He clenched his teeth and closed his eyes as if he were forcing himself to remember something. “Nix. Nix. Nix. Nix. Nix.” Lewis did not question the mantra.   
Lewis almost scowled. “You've stolen somebody else's life.” He told him, bluntly. When the man looked up to Lewis, he found no compassion in his eyes. “Those memories belong to her. You killed her and stole her life so you could live.”   
The man blinked. “What are you talking about? Lewis, you're making no sense.”   
He knew him. Ella. “Don't you dare talk to me like you know me.”   
“But I do know you.”   
“NO! You don't!” Lewis swung the umbrella in his anger. “Ella knew me. Not you! Ella was my best friend, my brother's wife and you killed her! You sat there and took her life, used her energy to make yourself into her and to live as a human in her place! You are an alien, you're a pod, a parasite that feeds off the lives of those in the vicinity. We tried to save Ella and you killed her, took her energy and used it. You USED her!”   
The man stared, wide-eyed at Lewis as he ranted. His hands became less sure on the photo he held and Lewis was able to see which one it was, the answer sending a shock of disgust through his spine. Ella and John's wedding photo. “What... you... I don't... but I remember.”   
“You killed the woman in that picture.” Lewis pointed. “And you are using her energy to live. You're not who you think you are. Whatever you think you are, is a lie. You're the creature that stole Ella's life.”   
“NO! I have... I have a girlfriend... a life... I... I'm Ellis... I'm...” He clamped his hand over his head and folded in on himself, the picture frame dropping to the floor, a crack racing through the glass surface, right over Ella's frozen smiling face. “This can't be happening.”  
Lewis moved forward. “You remember the lab right?”   
The man, Ellis, looked up to Lewis. “The... lab... yes...”   
“That's your first real memory. Everything else before that has come from Ella.”   
Ellis looked down at his shaking hands for a moment, blinking rapidly as if to clear his head. He closed his eyes. “Nix. Nix. Nix. Nix. Nix. Nix. Nix. Nix. Nix. Nix.” When he opened his eyes again, they were clear. He glared over at Lewis. “I don't believe you!” Without another word, the man on the floor leapt to his feet with shocking agility and leapt out the bedroom window and onto the roof off the garage next to the house proper.   
Well. Shit.  
With a sigh, Lewis pulled out his phone and quickly dialled Rose's number. It rang three times before she picked up.  
“Yeah, it's Lewis.” He moved forward and looked out the window. “Yeah, you're gonna be mad at me.”

“You should probably go meet him.”   
I had been back at the Torchwood building when Lewis rang, having turned up no information about the pod in the locations I had searched and I was aiding the Doctor with his own thoughts, obviously not in the lab that still housed the one remaining green Pod. It seemed more and more likely that he would turn up at Ella's old house and so we were waiting for Lewis' call.   
I had put the call on speaker so that the Doctor could also shout at the idiot for letting the Pod escape after we just found him. Now the call was over and Lewis was searching the neighbourhood to see if he could pull up any new information with what he had just discovered, with me and the Doctor mulling over the encounter.  
“Why?” I asked, frowning quizzically.  
He hesitated for a moment. “He could use your help.”   
I narrowed my eyes at him. “What are you talking about?”   
“And maybe... maybe you'd be happier...” His voice was quiet but it still stopped my heart.  
“What?”   
The Doctor threw his sonic screwdriver down and turned to look at me. “He's a normal human being, he has a good job, a home, he can provide for you and make you happy. What do I have? I'm an alien-turned-human with no job, no home and nothing to show for anything he does but this defective piece of junk.” He motioned to the screwdriver on the table that had been started to flicker from red to pink over the last few hours. “Maybe you'd be happier with him... he did kiss you...”   
“Yes, he kissed me and do you remember what I did? I punched him in the face! You cannot realistically claim that I'd be better off with some other man!” I snapped. “Back then, with the T.A.R.D.I.S and the two hearts, I'd understand why you would think that – you'd still be wrong but at least I'd get it – but now, here, in this situation... no!” I wanted to punch him too because his current expression just made me feel worse, like a puppy that had just been kicked. “I love you...”   
He sighed and nodded. “I'm sorry... I just...”   
I turned from him and crossed my arms.  
“I don't like that he kissed you.” I felt his arms creep around my body and pull me against his own. His breath was in my hair and I clung onto his arms despite myself. “I don't want anyone kissing you but me.”   
“Are you jealous?”   
“Extremely.” He turned me around and pressed his lips against mine, erasing any thought of Lewis I had effectively until all there was was the Doctor and his lips on mine.


End file.
